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THE 



World's Paradises. 



BY 



S. G. W. BENJAMIN. 




44 



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'APPLETONS' NEW HANDY-VOLUME SERIES. 

K y. y 

THE 



WORLD'S PARADISES: 



SKETCHES OF LIFE, SCENERY, AND 
CLIMATE IN NOTED SANITARIA. 



a a W. BENJAMIN". 









NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

1880. 

r 






COPYRIGHT BY 

D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
1879 



PREFACE. 



When the fall of Eve wrought the loss of 
paradise to man, the misfortune was not so irre- 
trievable as appeared at first. So Milton thought, 
for, after composing " Paradise Lost," he seems 
to have changed his opinion on the subject, and 
sang of " Paradise Kegained." If the race no 
longer reposes in the enchanted bowers of Eden, 
they find instead many Edens scattered over this 
varied and beautiful world, which, like the fair 
progeny of a peerless mother, suggest in their 
own lineaments the opulence of the maternal 
charms. 

The simple fact that the word paradise 
comes from the Sanskrit, which seems to be 
as nearly allied as any tongue to that of our 
primitive ancestors, serves as an additional testi- 
mony to the elemental value of that language ; 



4 PREFACE. 

for we owe to it the word, and therefore in- 
ferentially the idea, which expresses the two 
most important periods in the existence of the 
human race. Paradeso is the Sanskrit term 
from which is derived our word paradise, that 
with various modifications is used wherever 
Scripture is known and men of the Indo-Euro- 
pean races live and die. In paradise the human 
race began to be, and in paradise it will reach 
the final stage of its development. However 
men may disagree in the exact definition of this 
word and these periods of existence, they are 
commonly agreed in the general truths ex- 
pressed by the word paradise. 

How the term came to be used in this sense 
we find not a difficult matter to settle. The 
Greeks, borrowing the idea from the Persians, 
called a large park, intended for pleasure and 
the chase, a paradise. Those who are familiar 
with Xenophon will often find the word so 
used in his writings. The secondary meaning 
we apply to the word, as a spot of extraordinary 
attractions and fitted for ease, pleasure, and 
health, is really a blending of the Greek and the 



PREFACE. 5 

Scriptural ideas. It suggests at once the golden 
age of our ancestors, when innocence and happi- 
ness are supposed to have dwelt hand-in-hand in 
a greenwood where sorrow, pain, or sin entered 
not, and a world to which we may retreat at 
last from the rugged conflict of life in a sphere 
which all agree to consider corrupt and unsatis- 
fying. The best that men remember or that 
they hope for is thus included in the word 
paradise. 

It is therefore only natural that man should 
often turn with longing and rapture to such de- 
licious retreats as the world offers here and 
there, and, calmed by the seductive influences 
of a lovely scenery and a genial climate, half 
forget the stern realities of existence, and im- 
agine himself actually in an elysium whose 
charms seem to him perpetual. 

There have been in all ages certain magical 
spots which nature has endowed with a special 
enchantment — places sung by the poets and im- 
mortalized by perennial fame in the heart of 
the nations. There the weary have sought and 
often found rest, and those oppressed with dis- 



6 PREFACE. 

ease of the body or the soul have felt their 
languors pass away. 

It is evident that an earthly paradise, in 
order that it may be beneficial as well as at- 
tractive, should combine with beauty of scenery 
restorative climatic conditions that make it salu- 
brious to the invalid as well as agreeable to the 
pleasure-seeker ; or it should, at least, be so far 
free from noxious characteristics as to render it 
reasonably safe from malaria or epidemics. It 
is because of the absence of such sanitary quali- 
fications that many of the most seductive re- 
treats of the tropics can not be wisely visited, 
for too often they allure to destroy ; the fatal 
miasma lurks in their loveliest nooks, as the 
sumptuous Venetian rings of old sometimes 
pierced and insidiously instilled a poisonous 
dew into the fingers they adorned. 

It is in the north temperate zone that we 
find most of those famed spots to which the 
artist and the poet, the voluptuary and the in- 
valid, have resorted for ages, and found solace 
alike for body and soul. And two vast adjoin- 
ing regions, dependent mainly on air and water 



PREFACE. 7 

currents for their attractions, commend them- 
selves especially to our attention in this connec- 
tion. These are the basin of the Mediterra- 
nean and the North Atlantic between the lati- 
tudes of London and Havana. 

Some of these favored spots may be recom- 
mended as sanitariums during the whole year ; 
others only during certain seasons. But he 
must be capricious indeed in temperament, or 
completely exhausted in physique, who can not 
among them all find some resort that will suit 
his particular needs. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface 

Damascus 

Brusa 

The Bosporus . 

Smyrna , 

Scio 

Naples 

Corsica . r . 

Mentone . 

The South of France 

North of Portugal 

The Azores 

The Channel Islands 

The Isle of Wight 

The Bahamas 

Port George Island . 

Lake George 

The Bermudas 

Teneriffe . 

Madeira 

The Sandwich Islands 



11 
16 
21 
31 

56 
69 

91 
102 
112 
128 
138 
152 
157 
165 
170 
181 
1S8 
198 
212 



THE 

WORLD'S PARADISES. 



DAMASCUS. 

Until modern travel and increasing means of 
communication added to our knowledge of dif- 
ferent parts of the globe, and enabled us to visit 
them, it was natural that the gorgeous East 
should be the center of the world's paradises. 
Who has not heard of the vale of Cashmere, ly- 
ing green in the lap of the mountains, and shel- 
tered from the rude blasts and ruder men of the 
outer world ? 

There, too, is Bagdad by the tawny flood of 
the Tigris, shaded by clusters of palms, and glit- 
tering with gilded domes and minarets, first 
called the City of Peace, and far famed for its 
luxury and splendor in the days of Haroun-al- 
Raschid. Inclosing palaces and fountains with- 
in encircling battlements, and overarching groves 
that shielded it from the heat of the noonday sun, 



12 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

it well deserved to be ranked among the paradises 
of the East. 

But Damascus has for thousands of years been 
the most famous spot on the globe for the glory 
of its attractions. The oldest of the world's cities 
now existing, and the oldest in the universe, per- 
haps — the burden of the proof is with those who 
deny it — lapped on a verdurous plain by the side 
of murmuring streams, wars have swept over it 
in vain, for it still remains Damascus the peer- 
less. The secret of its loveliness is, however, 
very simple, if one cares to analyze it. In the 
steady, protracted heat of that climate, not so 
much excessive as continuous, nothing is more 
grateful than shade and running water, with 
abundance of flowers to perfume the air, and 
fruits for idle hours. All these conditions are 
found admirably combined at Damascus. The 
houses are built in the form of a hollow square 
around a court paved with marble, in the midst 
of which is a fountain surrounded by clambering 
vines, roses, and jasmines, and vaulted over by 
the dense foliage of mulberry, orange, fig, and 
linden trees, and pomegranates studded with scar- 
let buds. Stepping from the narrow, crooked, 
dusky street, gloomed by meeting eaves, one sud- 
denly finds himself in a paradise of ease, whose 
quiet and repose are admirably adapted to soothe 
the nerves of the weary. 

Another cause of the celebrity of Damascus 



DAMASCUS. 13 

has doubtless been the manner by which it is ap- 
proached. After a wearisome and exhausting 
journey over the desert of Mesopotamia, or the 
far more arid sands that lie between Egypt and 
Palestine, the traveler sees before him, on a vast 
plain, a long line intensely dark and green, re- 
sembling the shadow of a heavy cloud brooding 
over the landscape. As he approaches it the 
dark mass resolves itself into the dense foliage of 
palm, mulberry, fig, orange, linden, and chenar 
trees, lading the swooning air with perfume and 
filling the city with grateful shade. 

Throwing himself on the ample divan by the 
side of air-cooling fountains, almost overpowered 
by the fragrance of roses, and through the bub- 
bling narghile inhaling the delicate narcotic of 
Iran, the traveler naturally imagines himself in 
the heavens of Mohammed. " In the name of 
God the most merciful ! " he ejaculates with fer- 
vor as he quaffs the sherbet in a gilded goblet, or 
presses his teeth in the honeyed pulp of the purple 
grapes of Lebanon, reclining on the embroidered 
cushions of the ample divans which surround the 
salaamlik or reception-saloon, that bids him wel- 
come to ease and luxury fit for the pleasance of 
kings. 

There are antiquities in Damascus ; there is 
even a street there yet which St. Paul is said to 
have trod — the street called Strait. " Peace ! let 
the dead past bury its dead," is again the thought 



14 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

of the true believer and native Damascene. " The 
past is past, and as for the hereafter, God is 
great ! Are not the houris of to-day better than 
the possible ones of the future ? Are not Abana 
and Pharpar, lined with flowers, still the rivers 
of Damascus ? Is not the present in our grasp, 
O son of my uncle ? Hath paradise aught more 
graceful than the interweaving lines of yonder 
smoke, eerily soaring from my chibouque toward 
the infinite ? Why measure bliss or undertake to 
compare it ? Is not rapture rapture, wherever, 
whenever, however enjoyed ? I am in Damas- 
cus ; 'tis enough. — Achmet, another pipe ! " 

And when the trill of the nightingale floats 
on the air of twilight, and the city swoons in the 
deep orange hues of the fading day, and the cy- 
press and the palm, like motionless sentinels, 
stand dark against the sky tipped with stars, and 
the cry of the muezzin lingers and dies in long 
cadences over the battlements and far off over 
the plain, then Damascus wakes, and the revelry 
and the din of wassail begin. At mid-day she 
slept; at midnight the flash of her torches reveals 
the gleam of lambent and passionate eyes behind 
the gilded lattice or by the silver spouting foun- 
tains of marble. 

Fired by draughts of anisette, the almeh in 
gauze-like garb shows the voluptuous lines of her 
dazzling form in the mystic undulations of the 
Oriental dance, while murmurs of applause are 



DAMASCUS. 15 

heard from her spectators as she alternately beats 
the tambourine with energy and springs into the 
air as if winged, or seems to float away in the 
soft languors of overpowering rapture. 

One such evening I saw the Karaguez, or 
Punch and Judy of the East. Satire, the broad- 
est and keenest, pointed the shafts of its mirth, 
and the scene, by the torches of the summer 
evening, was one of extraordinary picturesque- 
ness. The sallies of wit, the chattering and pan- 
tomime of the puppets, the eager faces of the tur- 
baned groups, exhibiting anything but Oriental 
stolidity, formed a spectacle that was intensely 
vivid in its characterization. Of the music on 
such occasions it is impossible to speak from the 
scientific point of view of the European com- 
poser ; for its principles are of the rudest ; the in- 
struments are chiefly primitive guitars, tambou- 
rines, kettle-drums, and castanets ; and whether 
vocal or instrumental, the tunes, if they can be so 
called, consist of a succession of quick, sharp 
notes, rising rapidly to a high key, and dying 
away in lingering cadences that exasperate the 
blood to the last degree. I can not say that I 
ever heard any musical harmony in the East 
worth the mentioning, but I have never listened 
to any sounds that so excited the senses as Orient- 
al music ; and I can easily understand the effect 
it produces on the warm-blooded children of the 
sun. 



16 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

While meriting its celebrity because of the 
richness of its charms, Damascus in the spring- 
time can also be considered a valuable resort for 
those who are in need of absolute rest, and can 
resign themselves without reserve to the soothing 
influences of its pleasant air and sumptuous gar- 
dens and halls. If invalids would but abandon all 
thought or effort beyond the simple duty of enjoy- 
ing the beautiful around them and breathing the 
pure air of a temperate and steady climate, they 
might often throw physic to the dogs, and reduce 
the emoluments of the faculty. Pure air, even 
and moderate temperature, rest — these are the 
three prime remedies of nature, whose supreme 
importance is becoming better understood every 
year in the treatment of chronic maladies. 



BRUSA. 



Another famed Eden and health resort of the 
East lies at the foot of Mount Olympus. It is 
Brusa, in Bithynia, the first capital of the Turkish 
Empire, but founded long before Christ by Pru- 
sias, and the scene of the last days of that great- 
est soldier of the ages, Hannibal of Carthage. 

After being in the saddle from three in the 
afternoon, we brought up within the walls of the 
old city about midnight. All was silent except 
the dashing of water down the steep streets from 



BRUSA. 17 

the mountains, or the yelping of vagrant curs. 
The hostel where we sought a meal and a couch 
was on a narrow, sloping street. The landlord 
was a fat Teuton. The clatter of the horses did 
not arouse him. Only after pounding long and 
loud at the iron-bound gate, that awoke all the 
echoes of the sleeping town, did we at last suc- 
ceed in bringing him, leaden-eyed, to the door, 
with a guttering candle. 

But his hospitality soon became apparent, and 
he led us up to a noble hall, where he bade us 
welcome, while he bestirred himself to prepare a 
sumptuous meal. 

At two in the morning we discussed the din- 
ner, elegantly served and prepared, with the vari- 
ous delicacies for which the Turkish cuisine is 
famous ; for our host, although a German, em- 
ployed a native cook. Entremets, pilaff, pastry, 
and what not, led us by easy gradation and ge- 
nial converse to the final coffee and pipes ; and 
then to slumber, in apartments once occupied by 
an Osmanli of rank ; for the hotel was located in 
what had once been a kondfc, or residence of 
wealth. 

At morning, unexpectant of the scene that un- 
folded itself, I flung open the jalousies, and, lean- 
ing on the window-sill, looked down upon one of 
the world's paradises. Fame has not exaggerated 
the opulence of its charms. The moss-green tiles 
of the city's peaked roofs, the domes, the mina- 
2 



18 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

rets, the gardens, lay spread below, embosomed 
in a sea of verdure, bounded in the distance by 
the blue waters of the Marmora. 

Across a plain of wonderful beauty, skirted by 
the sea, rises the enormous range of the Bithyn- 
ian Olympus, ten thousand feet high. Its rugged 
ridge is clad in eternal snows. Near the base of 
this mountain, and partly on an outlying spur that 
reaches out on the plain like the resting foot of a 
couchant lion, lies the paradise of the Grand Turk, 
for situation and beauty scarcely surpassed by any 
city of the East. 

The melting snows of Olympus form many 
streams, which rush foaming through the streets 
of the ancient city with perpetual music, blending 
with the cooing of the turtle-doves that haunt the 
cypress shade in the marble courtyards of the 
mosques, and the nightingales that warble by the 
sequestered mausoleums of the founders of a once 
mighty empire. 

During several reigns, the Sultans of Turkey 
held their court at Brusa. Their palace and cita- 
del were on the brow of the steep hill which over- 
looks the lower town, and is still the site of sev- 
eral interesting half -ruined structures, including 
the mosque and tomb of the founder of the empire. 
Centuries after his death one of his descendants 
again made this his capital, and reigned at Brusa 
for seventeen days. Zizim, the brother of Baya- 
zid II., destined to die for no other crime than 



BEUSA. 19 

because he was younger brother of the Sultan — a 
capital fault in the Ottoman dynasty until within 
forty years — revolted, and with a large army held 
sway at Brusa. Twice defeated, however, by 
treachery, on the plains below, he fled, raised 
another army, and brought the Sultan to the 
verge of destruction by his energy and ability. 
Finally forced to fly a second time, he sought 
refuge with the Knights of Rhodes, who broke 
their faith, and for many years kept him immured 
in a castle in Dauphiny. There he bewailed his 
family, whom he never saw again, composed some 
of the noblest lyrics in the Turkish language, 
which are still highly prized by Orientalists, and 
stole a passing solace in the sympathetic love of 
the daughter of the castellan of Sassenage. Their 
descendants are still found in the south of France. 
Taken at last from the dungeon for diplomatic 
purposes, Zizim saw a powerful coalition of Eu- 
ropean princes formed to set him on the throne of 
Constantinople. At that critical moment the trea- 
sures of Bayazid availed to purchase the coopera- 
tion of Borgia, and on his way to empire again 
the unfortunate prince was poisoned by the agents 
of the Pope. His remains were transported to 
Turkey and buried in the city where for seventeen 
days he reigned with pomp and majesty, gazing 
with eagle eye over the paradise of Brusa. The 
royal annals of modern times offer us few histories 
more romantic than the career of Zizim. 



20 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

Brusa is celebrated for its manufactories of 
silk stuffs, which hardly yield to any others in the 
East, and also, in addition to its perennial charms, 
claims attention as a sanitarium on account of its 
thermal springs that issue at a boiling heat from 
the mountain- side. The water is impregnated 
with sulphur and other minerals especially suited 
to rheumatic and cutaneous diseases, and is util- 
ized by being caught in sanitary baths, arranged 
after the Turkish style. 

Nothing in the external aspect of the building 
I visited suggested that it was constructed over 
steaming geysers. Entering a long, spacious hall 
paved with marble and surrounded by amply 
cushioned couches, where bathers were reclining 
after the bath, sleeping, or smoking the aromatic 
narghile, it was with surprise that I learned, on 
passing into the vestibule hazy with dense vol- 
umes of steam, that the vapor was not produced 
by artificial heat. Treading over the hot floor 
with clogs on my feet, I passed, in a state border- 
ing on complete evaporation, into the main bath- 
room, an immense hall, barely lighted by bull's- 
eyes in the vaulted ceiling, and seemingly quiver- 
ing with the gray fog of the geysers. The bath- 
ers, reclining here and there on the marble, were 
singing to themselves, but their voices seemed far 
off and like echoes in a dream. 

The telldk, or bathing attendant, led me to the 
farther side of the hall, and there the rough rock 



THE BOSPORUS. 21 

of the mountain was seen projecting into the 
apartment, and the steaming water bursting forth 
in a highly choleric condition. But so parboiled 
had I become by this time, that when he placed 
my back against one of these hot streams gushing 
out like molten lava, the sensation was actually 
agreeable. The "subsequent proceedings" are 
best described by the word time. To reenter the 
reception-hall, to recline on its couches, to drink 
the fragrant berry of Araby, to smoke, to sleep, 
to dream — all this takes time, and without it half 
the advantages of the Oriental bath are wasted. 
The voluptuous fascinations of opium are not more 
delicious than the lethean and life-restoring repose 
that one may enjoy if he so wills after the other- 
wise enervating delights of the Turkish bath. 

I left the bath as the sun was going down be- 
hind the purple crags of Olympus ; and buoyed 
up by the most exquisite sensations, as if I were 
floating on the atmosphere rather than treading 
the ground, as I gazed entranced over the mag- 
nificent landscape, it seemed indeed one of the 
loveliest paradises yet seen by the eye of man. 



THE BOSPORUS. 

It is but a short night's sail from Modania, 
the port of Brusa, across the Sea of Marmora 
to the ivied walls of Constantinople, and its 



22 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

gilded domes and minarets, rising in clustered 
glory, tier above tier, along the steep shores of 
the Golden Horn, surrounded by myriads of gay- 
ly colored dwellings, and skirted by the waters 
crowded with picturesque shipping, and flowing 
at the feet of the imperial city like molten tur- 
quoise. Eastward and northward spread the 
waves of the Marmora and the Bosporus, en- 
circled by shores lined with palaces and groves. 
Lisbon and Naples and Rio Janeiro pale com- 
pared with a scene in which nature and man have 
combined to produce the utmost degree of splen- 
dor of which we yet have any knowledge. The 
imagination is dazed, the senses are almost 
stunned, by the external magnificence of Stam- 
boul. There may be other places where nature 
has been as bountiful, other cities where the 
monuments are as resplendent, although we ques- 
tion it ; but there is none that presents both of 
these elements so harmoniously united. 

The shores around the port of the Golden Horn 
rise so regularly and abruptly as to give the many- 
colored houses which line them in myriads, tier 
above tier, the appearance of gayly decked spec- 
tators in a vast amphitheatre. The gilded and 
historic dome of Santa Sophia, accompanied by 
the cupolas of numerous mosques, the glittering 
crescents of a crowd of minarets, and the blood- 
red banners of a multitude of gayly carved and 
painted ships ranged along the shore, close by the 



THE BOSPORUS. 23 

crumbling battlements and massive gateways and 
towers of the double walls erected by Genoese 
and Byzantine, add a matchless splendor to a 
scene which can be scarcely heightened when the 
setting sun fires dome and spire, veils the waters 
and palaces with a golden mist, and suffuses the 
ravines with purple gloom. But this wonderful 
spectacle, complete in itself, a dream to be in- 
closed within the memory like a pearl without a 
flaw, is but the vestibule to a succession of scenes 
which entrance the fancy and shape the character 
of him who has once offered incense at the shrine 
of the genius of this enchanted land. 

From the Sea of Marmora we enter the Golden 
Horn ; but where the two unite begins the Bos- 
porus, a winding strait flowing sixteen miles to 
the Black Sea. This is one of those places which 
from the earliest periods have attracted the atten- 
tion of mankind ; and the legends that cluster 
about it carry us back into the remotest past. One 
advantage which the Bosporus enjoys above its 
rivals, the Rhine and the Hudson, is its brevity. 
They are too extended for full appreciation except 
by a regular journey ; but it is obvious that within 
sixteen miles the resident can in a morning's row 
behold the matchless splendors of the Thracian 
strait one by one unfold themselves, without the 
necessity of shooting by so rapidly as to be un- 
able to contemplate them with satisfaction. 

The Bosporus is inclosed by steep hills, which 



24 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

decline so rapidly to the water that the largest 
ships can anywhere lie alongside the land. These 
hills are indented with gorges and valleys, which 
occur generally where the land retires and forms 
the most beautiful and inviting coves. A con- 
tinuous series of summer-houses and palaces lines 
the shores, the kiosks often actually overhanging 
the water, and flanked by the most delicious gar- 
dens and terraces, planted with every variety of 
favorite flowers and shrubs. The valleys and ra- 
vines, on the other hand, are clustered with vil- 
lages, whose tiled and moss-green roofs steeply rise 
one above the other in picturesque confusion up 
the precipitous sides of the hills. Through the 
center of the village rushes a brawling stream, 
hastening to meet the waters of the Bosporus. 
There, where the ravine widens, spreads a mall 
overarched by magnificent groups of stately che- 
nars and stone-pines, murmuring the music of the 
sea. There the children play. There the sleepy 
sentinel paces the live-long day before the crum- 
bling guard-house. There the caff eg ee prepares 
his coffee and pipes, and bears them with Oriental 
courtesy to the gray-bearded elders of the hamlet, 
who daily meet there to exchange the gossip of 
the neighborhood, to gaze on the idle ships float- 
ing by, and to muse over the beauty of the land- 
scape, robed in the purple splendors of an Oriental 
sunset. When the shades of evening have closed 
in on this peaceful scene, the tinkle of the lover's 



THE BOSPORUS. 25 

guitar floats by the gliding waters, which reflect 
the quivering lights of fleets and towns ; and when 
all are at last hushed in repose, the nightingale 
wakes and flings her passionate warblings over the 
serene stillness of the Bosporus. 

It is not strange that the Bosporus should have 
been for all ages a place of romance and story, of 
scenes of love too often ending in tragedy. If I 
were to narrate all the tales I have heard con- 
nected with the Bosporus simply during the last 
few years, it would be to compose a volume long- 
er than the " Arabian Mghts." An amusing es- 
capade occurs to me in this connection, that was, 
however, less entertaining to the actors who took 
part in it. A young Englishman of wealth, while 
passing a few hours of ease at one of the many 
attractive spots along the shores of the Bosporus, 
saw among a group of Armenian girls one who 
suddenly attracted his attention in a manner un- 
usual even to his susceptible heart. 

She also, at the same instant, was impressed 
by the appearance of this tall, slender, aristocratic 
foreigner. He ordered his attendant to follow 
the ladies unperceived, and ascertain who they 
w T ere and where they dwelt. The wily Greek soon 
obtained the desired information by opening an 
acquaintance with their servant. To make a long 
story short, a lively correspondence was soon 
started between the lovers — for lovers they were 
at first sight. The East may seem slow, dull, 



26 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

languid, but its passions are volcanic, and it takes 
but a spark to develop them into an ungoverna- 
ble violence. The correspondence was of course 
carried on through third parties, and at first was 
in the suggestive language of flowers ; but it 
ended in a serious proposal that the young lady- 
should fly across the seas with her lover. Already 
betrothed to one of her own countrymen, the fair 
Armenian well knew that she could never win the 
consent of her family to marry the proud young 
Englishman and exile herself from them in for- 
eign lands. 

* The idea of marrying her betrothed had now 
become intolerable, and she consented to elope. 
Her sister, who had to be taken into the secret, 
and who was neither young nor handsome, en- 
tered heartily into the arrangements. She en- 
couraged her sister's failing resolution, and with- 
out her assistance the affair might have ended in 
smoke. 

The destined night arrived, and the English- 
man, burning with ardor, also arrived under the 
window of his beloved. He was accompanied by 
a faithful attendant and fleet horses champing to 
bear the lovers away to the sea. The sisters also 
were at the casement, and a ladder was lowered, 
but the lady hesitated to descend. Perhaps she 
then realized what it was to incur the wrath of 
her family, to break the heart of her betrothed, 
and to throw herself into the arms of a stranger. 



THE BOSPORUS. 27 

Perhaps she also feared that she might fall from 
the rope ladder ; the night was dark, and an acci- 
dent was more than possible. 

Whatever the reason, the lady hesitated at 
this critical moment. Every instant was pre- 
cious, discovery would be fatal, and yet the lady 
hesitated. It was in vain that her sister urged 
and expostulated with her. 

"Well," said the older sister, "he shall not 
be disappointed, and if you will not go, I shall." 

Thus saying, she resolutely stepped on the 
ladder, and in a moment was in the lover's arms. 
The night was dark, as was before observed, and 
as he lifted her on the horse he supposed she was 
the younger sister. They were soon at the wa- 
ter's side ; a boat was waiting, and they hurried 
on board the ship that was to bear them to other 
lands. 

It was not until day broke that the English- 
man discovered the deception that had been prac- 
ticed upon him. But he was a man and a hero. 
When they reached the destined port he married 
the lady ; and although he never quite recovered 
the shock of the disappointment, he found solace 
in the pursuits of literature, and achieved a per- 
manent position as an historical author. 

It is difficult, where everything is so choice 
and beautiful, to select any particular scenes as 
surpassing the rest. Nevertheless, there are cer- 
tain parts of the Bosporus which seem more espe- 



28 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

cially to combine the grandeur and beauty of this 
matchless strait. One of these is where the shores 
approach most nearly to each other, at the spot 
where Darius carried his army across and Mo- 
hammed II. made his first lodgment in Europe. 
The two deep coves of Bebek and Kandillee, be- 
ing opposite to each other, present the appearance 
of a lake protected on the northern side by the 
grim white towers of Roumelee Hissar, and on the 
southern bank by the yellow ivied walls of Ana- 
dolee Hissar, whose battlements serve as windows 
to the quaint houses that were built there after the 
garrison was withdrawn and the castle was left to 
slow decay. 

By the foot of this old ruin glides the tran- 
quil flood called the Heavenly Waters, a stream 
that issues from the mountains of Asia Minor ; 
as it approaches the Bosporus it flows through 
broad meadow-lands carpeted with a profusion of 
wild flowers. Near the margin stands a marble 
summer-house of the Sultan, glittering with gilded 
lattices and surmounted by the flashing crescent 
and star. Here on festal days flock the gayly ap- 
pareled folk of the neighboring villages, while on 
the banks some primitive workers in clay, with 
the simple potter's wheel of ancient times, turn 
out earthenware vessels from age to age, illus- 
trating the great fact that through all the muta- 
tions of time the race begins and ends with the 
sod of the valley. 



THE BOSPORUS. 29 

From this magical spot we direct the gayly 
clad boatman of our swift caique to row us past 
castle and town to the Bay of Buyukdere.* The 
lines of the landscape at Buyukdere take a wider 
sweep. Dominating this lake-like expanse of 
waters, the mighty height called the Giant's 
Grave rises opposite Buyukdere. 

In the valley adjoining the village yet soars 
the vast plane-tree, with a trunk one hundred 
and twenty feet in circumference, under whose 
shade Godfrey de Bouillon and his army encamped. 
Sheltered by lofty hills from the northern winds, 
this is perhaps the choicest spot along the Bos- 
porus for invalids. There are no finer summer- 
houses, no sites more superb, no prospects more 
magnificent, than one sees as he saunters from this 
spot along the pier, until he is opposite to the 
crumbling castle which stands on the site, and is 
built of the stones of the old temple of Jupiter 
Urius. 

This edifice was built at least twelve hun- 
dred years before Christ, and crowns the summit 
of a lofty hill on the left side of the Bosporus. 

* The caique is to the Bosporus what the gondola is to 
Venice. Less funereal in appearance, fleet and graceful, fur- 
nished with scarlet cushions and decorated with gilded carv- 
ings, it is propelled by oarsmen in flowing white sleeves and 
red caps. The bosom is left bare, and their brown arms are 
sinewed with steel. Reclining in a caique on a May morning, 
one achieves the poetry of motion. 



30 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

From here we gaze on the winding waters of the 
strait, terminating with the spires of Stamboul, and 
over the broad, receding line of the blue Euxine 
and the northern mouth of the Bosporus. Jason 
and his companions, going after the Golden Fleece, 
stood there. Since that day Persian, Greek, Ro- 
man, Byzantine, Crusader, Islamite, and Frank 
have stood there in turn as conquerors, and have 
gazed and wondered ; for earth scarcely holds a 
prospect more beautiful, more alluring, more en- 
chanting. 

It is the crowning glory of this region that the 
climate is not only seductive, but salubrious, ex- 
cept from December to February inclusive, when 
the days are sometimes harsh and rude. The sit- 
uation of the Bosporus, between the Black Sea 
on the north and the Marmora on the south, has 
much to do with tempering the air and rendering 
it equable. The rigors of winter are moderated 
and shortened by the warmth of the southern 
zephyrs, while the raging heats of summer are 
cooled by the breezes wafted down from the 
Euxine. Thus extremes are rare, and after the 
arrival of March the days are few when the in- 
valid finds the climate morose and intolerable. 



SMYRNA. 31 



SMYRNA. 

" Southwaed, for ever southward," let our 
bark speed thence ; for other scenes invite, scarce- 
ly less attractive than these, adding by variety to 
the charm of life. 

Who has not eaten the figs and raisins of 
Smyrna, the " ornament of Asia," the " crown of 
Ionia " ? Situated at the head of a broad, beau- 
tiful bay, environed with perennial gardens, girt 
with a diadem of lovely villages, fragrant with 
the odorous airs that lade the serene iEgean skies, 
dowered with a wealth of historic associations, 
still dispensing fruits with a liberal hand, watched 
by the old Roman citadel, the grim battlements 
of the knights of St. John still reflected in the 
waters of her port, the city of the Moslem, the 
Greek, and the Frank is a living poem, but a 
poem of Byron's, fervid with the romance, the 
passions, and the crimes of the East. He who 
has sojourned there a fortnight dreams of her in 
his subsequent wanderings ; and he who has hap- 
pily dwelt there for years longs for her in other 
lands, and sighs that destiny separates him from 
the vineyards and olive - groves, the villas and 
ruins, the Caravan Bridge and the bazaars, the 
delicious breezes and star-eyed maidens of Smyr- 
na. So cordially does she welcome the child of the 
West to her bosom, that no city of the Levant 



32 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

can boast so large a proportion of foreign resi- 
dents. So considerable, in fact, is the Christian 
population, that the Turks call the place Giaour 
Ismir — infidel Smyrna. 

There are antiquities in and around the city of 
Smyrna of sufficient interest, chief among them 
the walls and towers of the castle crowning the 
brow of Mount Pagus, immediately in the rear of 
the Turkish quarter, which are well worth visit- 
ing. From the old ramparts a magnificent view 
is obtained over the city below, the gulf stretch- 
ing far away, encircled with mountains, and the 
gardens and villages whose verdure gives life to 
the prospect. Near by are the remains of the an- 
cient Stadium, where Polycarp was burned, and 
where many other Christians steadfastly endured 
the onset of wild beasts and the horrors of the 
stake. 

In the days when the Janizaries acted as a 
standing threat against the life of any Christian, 
and foreigners lived in Turkey almost as secluded 
as they did until recently in China or Japan, the 
English, French, or Italian merchants had their 
magazines and dwellings built on narrow, high- 
walled courts, extending from Frank Street to the 
Marino or "Water Street, each end of the court 
being protected by massive iron-studded gates, that 
are closed at nightfall : every court has also one 
or more porters, who carry the merchant's goods 
by day and mount guard for him at night. They 



SMYRNA. 33 

are magnificent fellows, rarely under six feet in 
height, and proportionably sturdy. They are more 
nearly the descendants of the original Ottoman 
stock than any of the subjects of the Sultan. 
These porters come from Ushak and Aidin ; the 
former is the place where the famous Turkish car- 
pets are woven by the hands of women into such 
gorgeous and enduring patterns. When a lad is 
born at Ushak his relatives ejaculate, " May he 
become a good Smyrna hernial ! " On reaching 
manhood he goes thither to live until he has 
amassed sufficient to enable him to return and 
pass the remainder of his days under the patri- 
monial fig-tree. The weight these porters carry 
on their backs is something enormous. 

The magazines on these courts are usually one 
story in height, and on part of the roof, which is 
flat, the house is built, the remainder of the roof 
serving as a sort of hanging garden on which to 
keep flowers, to promenade, or to sit at evening 
and watch the sun set over the sea, to smoke, 
take coffee, and chat. These terraces are also 
admirable positions for kite-flying, which is con- 
ducted in Smyrna on a scale unknown in most 
parts of the world. 

The kite season begins toward the last of Feb- 
ruary, and continues until May. A hundred kites 
may sometimes be counted in the air at once ; and 
what gives to the pursuit a singular interest is the 
circumstance that the Smyrniote manoeuvres his 
3 



34 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

kite as he would a boat or a horse, and these 
aerial toys may often be seen skirmishing and 
fighting in this way for hours. Skill and prac- 
tice are requisite in the construction and manage- 
ment of the kite for this airy warfare, which is 
not confined to boys, but is also engaged in by 
older persons, and thus forms a diversion far 
more exciting than the insipid sport followed in 
America. 

I once lived in a haunted house in one of those 
dark courts. It had not been occupied for several 
years, owing to its uncanny reputation. The rooms 
were built on one side of a hall one hundred and 
forty feet long, lighted on the opposite side by a 
row of small windows near the lofty ceiling, like 
port-holes in a frigate. Narrow passages led off 
into dark attics and stairways. But we were un- 
molested by anything more spectral than rats. 

During the fig season some of these courts are 
the scene of a spectacle that is interesting to such 
as consider dried figs one of the indispensable 
luxuries of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Large 
quantities of the fresh fruit are brought into 
Smyrna on the backs of camels, which march 
solemnly through the narrow streets in long pro- 
cessions, to the monotonous beat of a bell fastened 
to the pack-saddle of the leading camel. In front 
of each string of camels trudges a meek, Carmelite- 
looking little donkey, across whose back strides 
the camel-driver, wearing a huge turban on his 



SMYRNA. 35 

head and an enormous sheepskin cloak on his 
shoulders, beating the leathern sides of the im- 
perturbable beast with his long legs in unison 
with the clang of the camel-bell. Thus the slow 
train moves into the court of the foreign mer- 
chant or shipper, and the camels, after much 
grumbling on their part, are made to kneel down 
and deposit their cargoes. Since the railroads to 
Aidin and Kasaba have been opened, the " ships 
of the desert " have had some of the wind taken 
out of their sails, but it will be a long while yet 
before they are entirely superseded. 

The figs, which have either green or purple 
skins, and are pulpy and pear-shaped when they 
are fresh, are steeped in a solution of salt and 
water, and collected in heaps on mats laid over 
the pavement of the court. Around these mats 
gather women from the country, sitting on the 
ground, barefooted, and working over the figs 
with their fingers, each fig being thus manipulated 
and prepared for packing. These women are ac- 
companied by their children, who nurse while the 
mother is at work, or sport around, also barefooted, 
and greatly in need of a good washing, and occa- 
sionally while scuffling they chase each other over 
the piles of figs. It is a very amusing sight to 
those who do not intend to eat any of the figs. 

After this kneading process the fruit is packed 
in drums, the smaller ones at the bottom, a layer 
of superior figs and a few olive leaves being laid 



36 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

at the top to take the eye of the purchaser. Fruit 
in Smyrna does not " grow bigger downward in 
the box." A few drums are filled entirely with 
the best quality of figs for those who choose 
to pay for them. The drums are carried to the 
quay and taken out to the ships in lighters. The 
manner of getting them on board is unique. A 
plank is swung over the ship's side half way be- 
tween the lighter and the gunwale, and a man is 
stationed on it. There are also two men in the 
lighter alongside. One of them picks up a drum 
and tosses it to the other, and he throws it to the 
man on the plank, and he in turn to a man at the 
bulwarks, who flings it to another standing at the 
hatchway, who drops it into the hands of a steve- 
dore in the hold, who gives it a final toss to the 
stevedore who stows it in its place. The effect is 
very odd, as the process goes on hour after hour 
with the regularity of a piece of machinery. 

When a house is roofed in the East the tiles 
are sent up to the eaves in the same manner, men 
standing on the ladders and scaffolding to catch 
the tiles ; and, although the operation is done 
with the rapidity of machinery, I have never seen 
a drum or a tile drop from the hands of the catcher. 

For the most part, the Christian quarter of 
Smyrna, the largest portion of the city, is now 
laid out with some regularity. The streets are 
wider and better paved than formerly and lighted 
with gas, and the houses are solidly constructed 



SMYRNA. 37 

of stone, somewhat after the Italian style, usually 
comprising two lofty stories. The large central 
hall of the ground-floor is checkered with blue- 
and-white marble, which is both cool and elegant 
in its effect. A pleasant Smyrniote custom is 
at evening for the family to sit at the open door 
and chat with their neighbors. On holidays, 
which are both numerous and carefully observed 
by the cessation of business, the doors and win- 
dows are "clustered with women," "all abroad 
to gaze," eating confectionery, and attired in stuffs 
of scarlet massively embroidered with silk and 
gold thread. In the jewelry they wear on such 
occasions the future husbands may see their dow- 
ries. On such a day many expressive and beau- 
tiful faces appear at the windows, particularly 
among the Greek women. 

The society of Smyrna has the reputation of 
inclining to luxury and license. But the rose-con- 
serves they offer the stranger are a very bewitch- 
ing means of stopping the mouth of the critic, and 
turn the words of censure that fall from the lips 
of the moralist into laudatory phrases. In the 
month of roses, which of course is June, there as 
elsewhere, baskets heaped to the brim with rose- 
leaves are ranged in the fruit-bazaars, lading the 
air with perfume. 

The rose-preserves are the result of a very 
simple process. To a pound of rose-petals add a 
pound of sugar j keep them over a slow fire until 



38 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

cooked ; then deposit them in a glass jar, and, 
under lock and key, guard them from prowling 
urchins seeking what they may devour. As occa- 
sion requires, have the sweetmeat served on a sil- 
ver salver by a piquant Teniote maid. 

The baclavd of Smyrna is another delicacy for 
which that city is famous ; it would soften the as- 
perity of Timon of Athens. It is a flaky, diamond- 
shaped pastry, flavored with honey, almonds, and 
spices ; it melts on the tongue. During the Mo- 
hammedan holidays of Bairam, or at Easter and 
the New Year, or a christening or a wedding, a 
large tapsee or circular pan of baclava is one of 
the indispensable delicacies of the occasion. 

The katymerry is still another pastry prepared 
in Smyrna with peculiar excellence. Early in the 
morning men go about the streets crying, " Katy- 
merria." It is eaten with coffee, in bed or imme- 
diately after rising. 

The bakeries of Smyrna, as throughout the 
East, afford the observer much entertainment. 
The whole front of the shop is open summer and 
winter ; the broad counter, on which bread and 
pastry are kneaded and rolled, encroaches on the 
street and actually overhangs the pavement. Be- 
hind it the baker is busy, and before it, in the 
street, stands the customer purchasing loaves or 
eating katymerria. All the baking of the city, 
including meats, is done at the public bakery. 
The oven is behind the baker ; he lays the bread 



SMYRNA. 39 

or meat on the red-hot floor with a long-handled 
shovel, which often projects far across the street, 
and sometimes hits a passer-by in the ribs, as the 
jolly, saucy, steaming baker flourishes it to and 
fro without regarding friend or foe. The loaves 
are carried on the shoulder through the streets in 
long, canoe-shaped troughs. 

It is evident that the real fascinations of 
Smyrna are to be found not so much in what 
she possesses to remind us of the past as in 
the softness of her climate, and the peculiarly 
luxurious life of the inhabitants, who abandon 
themselves to the seduction of the air and sce- 
nery, and indulge in semi-Sybaritic habits adapt- 
ed to what might be called their environment. 
Look, for example, at the plan of their coun- 
try-houses. Adaptation, the first principle in 
architecture, we here find not only demonstrat- 
ed, but contributing to the ease of the occupants. 
Most of these charming villas are built on one 
floor ; a central or reception hall is surrounded 
by the apartments of the family. The house 
generally faces east and west ; and this cen- 
tral room opens on two spacious porticoes pro- 
fusely shaded by clambering vines laden with 
blossoms, and facing the grounds laid out with 
shade-trees and flowers. During the first half of 
the day the family occupy one portico ; in the 
afternoon they move to the other side of the 
mansion. Thus they contrive to have shade and 



40 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

coolness during the whole day, and at evening 
they stroll forth under the stars. 

At Smyrna we find ourselves fairly on the 
shores of the basin of the Mediterranean, which 
offers some of the most noted of the world's sani- 
tariums. Were northerly winds prevalent, Smyr- 
na could hardly be recommended as such. But, 
fortunately, during the warm months the prevail- 
ing winds are westerly and off the sea, and blow 
almost with the regularity of a trade-wind. The 
dampness of winter and the excessive heat of sum- 
mer are objections to those who are not healthy ; 
but from February until July the climate is very 
fine, and suited to many who suffer from chronic 
complaints. 

In the outskirts of the city we find one of the 
choicest and most characteristic spots in the East 
— the celebrated Caravan Bridge. 

In order to enjoy the attractions of this resort 
to the full one should repair to it early in the 
morning, while the figs are yet fresh and cold 
with dew, and breakfast there ; or, better still, he 
should visit it when the sun approaches the west. 
Taking low stools by the water-side, and provided 
with the inevitable coffee and pipes, we are in a 
mood to yield ourselves to the seductive influ- 
ences of this remarkable scene. An open space im- 
mediately around the river is devoted partly to the 
comfort of loungers, and partly to the encampment 
of groups of camels, which kneel in circles and 



SMYRNA. 41 

receive their evening meal from their uncouth 
but picturesque drivers. 

On one side of this space arise gardens of or- 
ange, mulberry, and pomegranate trees, echoing 
with the droning tune of the water-wheel by 
which they are irrigated. In another direction 
in solemn, stately majesty tower the marshaled 
host of cypresses which guard the Moslems' 
graves ; robed in muffling shadows of evening, 
their tapering crests, like points of spears, yet 
receive the parting glow of the sun. Beyond 
looms the Acropolis of the city, wearing on its 
brow the circle of crumbling battlements reared 
by the legions of Rome. The note of the turtle- 
dove falls plaintively but soothingly on the quie- 
tude of a scene which would give pleasure even to 
the soul of a pessimist. Around us, calmly smok- 
ing, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Franks are 
seated, chatting in groups ; and, nobler than them 
all, the much-maligned Turk, who in manners is 
still the finest gentleman of the age. The easy 
courtesy and stateliness of his mien have not been 
and never will be surpassed. 

Across the Caravan Bridge, which spans the 
Meles at this place, we proceed to rural scenes so 
lovely that they have justly given to Smyrna the 
praise it bears. 

This celebrated old city is girt by a circlet of 
hamlets of such simple pastoral beauty that he 
who has once tasted their attractions is never 



42 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

satisfied until he can return and once more listen 
to the slumberous monotone of the cicala in their 
mulberry and linden groves, and hear the beat of 
the tambourine under the vast umbrage of the 
chenars of Bournabashi, and there learn the quality 
of the fruits of Smyrna, the finest in the world. 
The grapes and figs of Smyrna, the melons of 
Cassaba — match them who can ! A stream me- 
anders across the green of Bournabashi, and loses 
itself in the vineyard. Where the brook falls into 
a basin under the sycamores, the peasant-girls, 
white-armed and white-ankled, wash their clothes 
singing, while the poppies are yet glistening with 
the dew of the morning. The patriarchs of the 
village smoke the narghile hard by, in the shade 
of the trellised vines ; and the wandering min- 
strel earns a frugal meal with a rustic ditty. 
There let me once more eat the figs and the 
grapes of Smyrna and repeat the songs Anacreon 
sung ! 

These villages are surrounded by barley-fields 
and olive-groves, whose silver-gray leaves, turn- 
ing a dark side upward when fluttering in the 
wind, assume an indescribably soft, tender, po- 
etic hue in the haze of the distant landscape. 
There is no tree whose form seems so invested 
with sentiment, whose gnarled, twisted, pictu- 
resque trunk, girt with gray-ribbed bark, like 
a coat of mail, battered in many battles, so re- 
sembles a veteran who has seen life, and has a 



SMYRNA. 43 

career of struggling, suffering, and endurance to 
tell. Is it any wonder, then, that the ancients, 
when they discerned the humanity of the olive- 
tree, should have invented their fables of dryads 
or of nymphs turned into trees ? 

The roads which lead to these villages around 
Smyrna, and the streams which course by them, 
as through the lovely valley of St. Ann's and the 
valley of Paradise, are bordered by oleander, lau- 
rel, and sweet-smelling myrtle, growing in the ut- 
most profusion, and overarching the road, inter- 
woven with the tamarisk and the round scarlet 
balls of the arbutus. Here and there, on knolls 
above the sea of verdure, or on the overhanging 
brow of a hill, a cluster of stone-pines seems to 
waft the music of the sea up to the mountains 
beyond, and gives a singular stateliness to the 
landscape as they wave away the years. 

The romance of brigandage has given to these 
seemingly quiet and dreamful haunts a piquancy 
which really adds to the sentiment they inspire, 
such is the latent perversity that lurks in the hu- 
man breast. I suppose a realist can analyze the 
poetry out of the most romantic bandit that ever 
lived. Granted ; and yet, after you have picked 
Milton's Satan to pieces, there is somehow an idea 
remaining that you have been juggled by the very 
clever casuist who has done it. We still have a 
lurking consciousness of the poetic aspects and 
uses of that magnificent creation. All the poetry 



44 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

of the North American Indian has been analyzed 
and sneered away by some. What then ? The 
fact remains nevertheless as true that there is 
about the wild, stolid denizen of the Western 
Plains a certain raciness and suggestiveness to 
the fancy that still invests him with the garb of 
romance. 

I have seen some of those brigands of Smyrna. 
They looked neither more nor less desperate than 
many every-day people one meets constantly in 
the streets, and their lives had doubtless often 
been sufficiently prosy. But the daring, the defi- 
ance of law, the hair-breadth escapes, the mys- 
teriousness of the life they led, were all so many 
qualities that seemed to elevate them out of the 
rank of your mere burglar or assassin. At pres- 
ent these rogues are not heard of so often as 
formerly ; but there was a time, not so long ago, 
when even the villagers, I grieve to say, were in 
league with them — let us hope out of fear rather 
than villainy. Riches were then indeed a snare, 
as the theologians tell us ; for on their account 
Smyrniotes of substance were entrapped and 
kidnapped, and forced to purchase liberty with 
heavy ransoms, or forfeit their lives. Yet those 
were merry brigands withal, and many a good 
story is told of the zest they showed in the coun- 
try dances, selecting the prettiest maidens, and 
occasionally alluring one of them to fly to the 
mountains and become a robber's bride. 



SMYKNA. 45 

Brigandage, par excellence, although existing 
in remote districts of Asia Minor, had not yet be- 
come especially troublesome in the neighborhood 
of Smyrna, and gentlemen rode out daily to their 
country seats in the villages without fear of mo- 
lestation. They hunted in the mountains at will, 
kept their gamekeepers, and looked for nothing 
more than a leopard, a wild boar, or a wolf, such 
as abound in Asia Minor in sufficient numbers to 
afford excellent sport. But, almost before they 
were aware, the Smyrniotes were aroused from 
their fancied security. Brigandage appeared in 
the vicinity so suddenly, and in so many quarters, 
that it almost seemed as if the brigands sprang 
armed out of the ground. Their organization was 
complete, as though it had proceeded from a pre- 
concerted plan, devised by a number of associates. 
It is not likely, however, that it was more than a 
fortuitous aggregation of elements which natu- 
rally fell together, and only gradually gave ex- 
pression to their communistic views regarding 
the nature of society. Robbers are only com- 
munists called by their right name : one is not 
more dangerous to society than the other, and 
both aim at that division of property which 
comes without labor or inheritance, or the appli- 
cation of the normal laws of supply and demand. 

Now, these communists of Smyrna were not 
satisfied only with the vulgar mode of highway 
robbery known as the " stand-and-deliver " system. 



46 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

Brigandage was raised by them to an intellectual 
rank — to a fine art. They studied the intricate 
problems of human nature, and, after discovering 
the points where it is most vulnerable, adroitly di- 
rected their attacks on the weak spot. A wealthy 
merchant of Smyrna would attract their analyti- 
cal keenness of vision ; they discovered, by aid of 
their communistic principles, that he had no right 
to so large a share of money, even if won by brains 
and hard labor ; they decided that, although they 
had not the brains nor the love for work which 
couid win wealth for them by ordinary methods, 
yet as men and brothers alone they had a right to 
share his wealth with him. After reaching this 
conclusion, the next thing was to put their views 
into execution. To kill this rich man would be 
very foolish ; that would be only slaughtering the 
goose that laid the golden eggs ; and, besides, his 
property would then be divided between the law- 
yers. It was to the advantage of the bandits 
that he should live as long as possible, but that 
meantime he should be tapped occasionally like a 
dropsical patient ; that is, that he should be re- 
lieved at intervals of some of his wealth. To 
play upon his fears would seem to be in his case 
the most feasible way to reach the desired result. 
The art of writing letters was cultivated by 
them — letters couched in elegant style, offending 
none of the rules of syntax, and rich in figurative 
language, but at the same time direct, terse, and 



SMYRNA. 47 

unmistakable in their meaning. Such letters the 
aforesaid merchant would receive sometimes, sug- 
gesting that a more equitable division of his prop- 
erty would be satisfactory to certain of his fellow 
citizens, who desired nothing more than a contin- 
ued life of prosperity for him, but further observ- 
ing that epidemics of a fatal character sometimes 
visited Smyrna, especially destructive in the upper 
crust of society, and that if he did not deposit 
the trifling sum of five thousand dollars in a cer- 
tain place at a certain time, a mysterious Provi- 
dence might visit him or his household with the 
epidemic. 

With the beads of perspiration starting out on 
his brow, and a cold chill shivering down his spine, 
as if he already felt the poniard-like sharpness of 
the epidemic striking to his marrow, the merchant 
could devise no other remedy than to yield to 
these communistic sentiments ; and at the ap- 
pointed time a bag of five thousand dollars in 
gold would be found at the indicated rendezvous. 

As a further means of gaining their public- 
spirited ends, these intelligent communists indoc- 
trinated a large number of other citizens with their 
views, both in the city and in the neighboring vil- 
lages. These citizens did not become actual brig- 
ands ; that title and position were reserved for the 
leaders, the legislators, as it were, who expounded 
the principles of political economy for Asia Minor. 
But they assumed the honorary title of confeder- 



48 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

ates or lobbymen, and wire-pullers, who aided the 
leaders by gaining information, concealing them in 
time of danger, entertaining them on festal nights, 
pointing out the geese that would bear plucking, 
conveying blackmailing correspondence, and mak- 
ing themselves generally useful in undermining 
the foundations of society for the purpose of fur- 
thering the success of communism, and at the 
same time wearing the mask of respectable citi- 
zenship until they could throw it off without risk- 
ing their heads. 

These confederates existed in all grades of so- 
ciety, and were especially numerous in the rural 
districts, so that it was sometimes exceedingly 
difficult to tell whom to trust ; often one would be 
surprised to learn that a neighbor or an acquaint- 
ance was a probable confederate. Suspicion in- 
creased, and the uneasiness of the community was 
well founded. It was more than a matter of re- 
port that the brigands came to the city on fete- 
days, and, dressed in Parisian styles, jauntily 
smoking cigarettes, and flourishing slender walk- 
ing-sticks, actually visited the churches at the 
hour of mass. It was but too grave a certainty 
that they came down into the villages and actual- 
ly danced with the servant-girls in the villas of 
the wealthiest citizens, who were consequently 
forced to remain in town during the summers. 
The caffegees or innkeepers were notoriously in 
league with the brigands. 



SMYRNA. 49 

Emboldened by the success of their commu- 
nistic plans, the robbers finally seized the persons 
of influential Smyrniotes, without regard to their 
nationality, in order to bring about more speedily 
that equitable division of property so ardently de- 
sired by every public-minded communist. Turks 
when captured had their hearts torn out ; but the 
shedding of blood is not contrary to the commu- 
nist code the world over. Other victims of the 
brigands were permitted, however, to have a cer- 
tain time in which to redeem their lives by sub- 
scribing to the most advanced code of the nine- 
teenth century so ably taught and practiced by 
the bandits of Smyrna. For example, the victim 
would be allowed twenty-four or forty-eight 
hours in which to raise a given sum of money for 
ransom. If the money came within the specified 
time, the brigands invariably released him ; for 
they were men of honor, and no bad faith was 
permitted to sully the lives of these apostles of 
the doctrine of the equitable division of proper- 
ty. But if the money did not arrive by the hour 
named, the prisoner lost an ear. Another day's 
delay deprived him of his other ear ; a third day 
showed him minus a hand, and the fourth day be- 
held him perhaps without a head. These diver- 
sions, doubtless devised to entertain the prisoner 
during his stay in the mountains, were varied to 
suit different cases, and in the mean time he was 
hurried from one den to another, in order that he 
4 



50 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

might not be rescued by the mistaken kindness of 
the soldiers sent out by the Government. 

A system of signals existed among this band 
of jolly freebooters, which enabled them by day 
or night to detect the approach of friend or foe. 
A lookout would cry " Bah ! " from a thicket like 
a sheep. That meant friends. The crow of a 
raven called for circumspection, the yelp of a fox 
meant danger ; and so on through a long list of 
preconcerted signals. 

Ears, hands, feet, piastres, and lives had now 
been lost by a considerable number of unfortunates 
who did not subscribe to the proletarian principles 
of the brigands, and the Smyrniotes were begin- 
ning to think they had had about enough of this 
doctrine, notwithstanding that there is nothing in 
sociology so extraordinary as the long suffering 
often shown by a people in enduring the preach- 
ing and practice of the most destructive and pes- 
tilent doctrines. But matters were brought to a 
climax, and the city thrown into an uproar, when 
news came that the Vice-Consul of Holland had 
been seized by the brigands and carried off to the 
mountains, and that a man was actually in the city 
trying to raise a ransom of sixty thousand pias- 
tres, the sum which the brigands considered an 
equitable share of the consular property. The 
Vice-Consul had been captured at the very gate 
of his garden, while accompanied by his children 
and game-keepers. The ransom was finally raised 



SMYRNA. 51 

and taken to the mountains, and he was promptly 
released. 

The brigands were, as before observed, men 
of their word, and, hard as it might be for them, 
they kept it even if it involved the violent death 
of their captive ; if a man's life was forfeited, 
they never flinched from performing their part of 
the contract, and sheared off his head without hes- 
itation, although remorse might follow because 
they had not a little longer extended the time for 
his ransom. As good Christians also — good Ori- 
ental Christians — they were scrupulous in attend- 
ing to the demands of religion. Greek priests they 
never harmed ; partly, perhaps, because monks 
have been occasionally known to be confeder- 
ates and converts to the social principles of the 
brigands. But Roman Catholic priests, whom they 
considered as schismatics, have had their ribs 
tickled by the stilettos of the robbers. Their ven- 
eration for religion is also shown by the fact that 
when one of them was taken by the soldiers and 
confessed to his priest for absolution before his 
execution, his remorse was almost beyond pacify- 
ing because, once, when murdering a man on a 
Friday, some of the victim's blood had spurted into 
his mouth and he had swallowed it — a deadly sin 
because it was on a fast-day. No, even the devil 
must have his due, and to say that these brigands 
were not Christians would be — well, why should 
we be dragged into a theological snarl because we 



52 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

are talking about banditti ? Farther in the inte- 
rior, in Karamania or Kurdistan, the robbers are 
generally Mohammedans, and these remarks would 
not apply to them. 

That nerve and unswerving rectitude in the 
pursuit of their plans were characteristic of these 
brigands, is illustrated by the fearful initiation 
of one of their number into this society of select 
and kindred spirits. His name was Yanni or John, 
and he was gamekeeper to a Turkish gentleman, 
who was the unfortunate possessor of an ambitious 
wife and a very beautiful daughter, who fell des- 
perately in love with the handsome gamekeeper ; 
he returned her passion, and several clandestine 
meetings resulted in leaving her in an interesting 
condition. About this time the lovers discovered 
that her mother was weary of her lord, and re- 
garded their amour with favor. In the mean 
time Yanni had formed a pleasant and instructive 
acquaintance with some of the brigands, who had 
made him a convert to their socialistic principles. 
" There seemed to be a providence in it," as some 
would say. When a woman loves passionately 
and desperately, she can be converted to almost 
any belief by the man she loves ; and so Yanni 
found when he discussed the matter with Zeineb. 
She entered readily into his plans, and her mother 
easily became an accomplice. A quieting dose 
was administered to the poor, credulous, unsus- 
pecting, uxorious Turk, given to him in his coffee 



SMYRNA. 53 

by his tender and affectionate wife. He passed 
away to the paradise of the houris, and the two 
women and Yanni now robbed his coffers at lei- 
sure, and started off to the mountain den where he 
had agreed to meet the brigands. It was among 
the wild ranges of Tachtalee. About midnight 
the party arrived there, and found the banditti 
around a fire in a cave, wrapped in their capotes, 
but on the alert because the lookout had announced 
approaching footsteps. Having returned the pre- 
concerted signal, Yanni and the women were ad- 
mitted to the presence of the chief, who extended 
a gruff welcome to Yanni, but fiercely demanded 
who the women were. On being informed, the 
chief swore with fearful imprecations that no Mos- 
lem dogs should pollute the camp with their pres- 
ence, so long as there were so many fair Christian 
women from whom the brigands could select their 
paramours. In terms which could not be mis- 
taken, he informed Yanni that his admission as 
a member of the band depended on his killing 
Zeineb without a moment's delay ; any hesitation 
could only result in the forfeiture of his own 
as well as of her life ; and, suiting the action to 
the word, the chief placed a pistol in his hand. 
Yanni's principles were equal to the occasion. 
Heeding not the frantic screams of the girl, who 
clasped his knees in desperate appeal, he leveled 
the muzzle of the pistol at her head and fired ; 
at the same instant the dagger of the chief pierced 



54 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

her mother to the heart, and the two corpses were 
thrown over the cliff. Having thus proved him- 
self to be made of the right metal, Yanni was now 
heartily welcomed by the band, and, after a long 
course of adventure, became their leader. Cap- 
tured at last by the soldiery, he bribed his keeper 
to let him escape from prison on the eve of execu- 
tion ; but he was finally killed in a skirmish with 
the troops. 

One of the most interesting occasions in the 
career of these brigands was the waylaying and 
murder of the Tartar and the capture of the trea- 
sure in his charge. Except on the two or three 
short railways, the mail is carried in Turkey by 
men called Tartars, probably because they were 
originally Turks of unmixed Tartar extraction, 
who could be depended on for their fidelity, cour- 
age, and endurance. They ride on fleet horses at 
a gallop day and night, accompanied by one or 
two men, and armed to the teeth. When they 
arrive at an inn, whatever be the hour, everything 
has to give way to them. A hasty meal and pipes 
are at once prepared, and then, rolling themselves 
in their capotes, the Tartar and his attendants 
snatch a few rapid winks on the divan, and are 
off again on a fresh relay of horses. 

A ride of this sort from Bagdad to Constanti- 
nople is attended with great exhaustion, and could 
be endured as a business only by men specially 
trained to it. When traveling in Asia Minor, I 



SMYRNA. 55 

have repeatedly been aroused at midnight by the 
bustle and noise attending the arrival of the Tar- 
tar. But the inns where he stops are often kept 
by men who are in league with the brigands, who 
are thus thoroughly informed of the probable 
amount of treasure he carries in his saddle-bags, 
or of any other travelers who may repay the risk 
of capture. 

The brigands of Smyrna made the lives of 
these Tartars exceedingly uncertain. There are 
many narrow denies which have, in the course of 
years, become known as haunts frequented by the 
robbers ; and there, behind the rocks, they would 
lie in ambush. As the Tartar rushed by on a 
dark, stormy night, the flash of muskets would 
suddenly illumine the gloom. Sometimes a fatal 
shot would fell him and his horse to the ground ; 
sometimes he would escape, to lose his life per- 
haps on another occasion from the same peril. 

But long success at length gave a rash audacity 
to the attempts of the robbers, which, for the 
time, brought matters to a crisis. The capture 
of the Dutch Vice-Consul led the Turkish Gov- 
ernment to see that, in order to avoid foreign 
complications, it must bestir itself ; and a new 
governor was sent to Smyrna, with a force suffi- 
cient to exterminate the brigands, and stamp out 
the flames of communism. The robbers were 
forced to disband before an energy which, if spas- 
modic, was at least effectual for the time. Some 



56 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

of them even suffered martyrdom for their prin- 
ciples, and died as the dog dieth. Caught in 
some cases through the guidance of the confed- 
erates who turned against them in the hour of 
adversity, they were cuffed, beaten, kicked, and 
called by every obscene epithet with which the 
Oriental languages abound, and, with their arms 
tightly pinioned, were driven through the streets 
of Smyrna, followed by jeering multitudes. In a 
square, or where four streets met, a noose was 
placed around their necks, and they were hoisted 
to the eaves of a shoj), and left there for the city 
to gaze at them, and the birds of the air to pick 
out their eyes. 

For several years after this a certain quiet 
reigned in Smyrna. But whenever the Govern- 
ment relaxes its vigilance the brigands are liable 
to make their appearance in the neighborhood. 



SCIO. 

If you climb the mountains behind Bourna- 
bashi, you will see an isle, beyond the Bay of 
Smyrna, that beckons us to its shores with per- 
petual charms. The Genoese called it Fior di 
Levante, and we to-day know it as Scio's rocky 
isle. 

From Smyrna one may reach Scio by steamer, 
or, if he prefers, by one of the curious coasting 



SCIO. 57 

craft, which seem to reproduce some of the pe- 
culiarities of ancient galleys in their quaint con- 
struction. 

There is a strait nine miles wide on the coast 
of Ionia. On one side is Teos, where Anacreon 
sung of love and wine long ago. Opposite Teos 
stretches the spiny ridge of Scio's isle, reposing 
on the perfect waters of the iEgean. Its crags 
and vine-clad slopes are suffused with that inde- 
scribable roseate hue that invests the landscapes 
of the East, and dreamily suggests strange attrac- 
tions, of which the traveler has but a faint con- 
ception until he has landed and dwelt there a 
space, and become familiar with the inexhaustible 
variety of her beauty. 

The plan of this islet is simple enough. A 
central ridge intersects it north and south, and 
gives emphasis to the softness of the scenery. 
The lower slopes and plains along the seaside are 
enriched with luxuriant vegetation, which is ren- 
dered picturesque by the Italian architecture of 
the villas scattered over the island, and the peaked 
roofs of the huts of the peasantry. A landing is 
effected at Port Kastro, on the eastern side. This 
is the only town of consequence on the island. 

It is a matter of more importance than many 
are aware of that the approach to a place we see 
for the first time should be agreeable, in order 
that the welcome our spirits and fancy receive 
should seize us by the heart, and make us feel 



58 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

already at home ere we are fairly arrived. Those 
who are unaccustomed to analyze their mental 
operations find it difficult to understand how 
much this first impression has to do with our 
final estimate of a place, although it is true we 
may thus not unfrequently misjudge a locality 
which shows great attractions on further acquaint- 
ance. Scio has fortunately all the qualifications 
essential to steal and to hold the heart of the 
stranger on his first arrival, if repose and amen- 
ity of scenery are what he seeks. 

The ship, slipping idly down the coast, past 
the group of islands called the Spalmadores, sud- 
denly opens the entrance to a small landlocked 
basin of a port. On the right frowns a Genoese 
fortress with gray pepper-box turrets, on which 
flutters the crimson banner of the Crescent. On 
the left is a low range of hills crested by a row 
of somnolent windmills perpetually turning their 
whirring white arms against the sky. Before us 
lies the town, whose wharves are picturesque with 
the shipping loading gayly-colored fruits that are 
piled in glowing masses. The houses are par- 
tially concealed by a skirmish-line of coffee-shops 
and market-booths, where the idlers of an idle 
day while away the idle hours with the seductive 
chibouque. What little activity is evident about 
the port is of exactly a sort to intensify the nar- 
cotic effect of a scene that is bathed in the vapory 
haze of a dreamful summer's day. 



SCIO. 59 

We go on shore, and pass beyond the sight of 
the port into dark cool lanes lined with massive 
mansions of stone. Our first call is the signal 
of a welcome, attended by the unfailing refresh- 
ments of rose or mastic conserves served by a 
charming Sciote damsel, and followed by the in- 
evitable chibouque. 

In the absence of hotels, the stranger has 
taken in advance a villa in the Campo, and now 
proceeds to inspect and occupy it. " John, fetch 
the mules ! " The mules are led up ; they are 
fine animals, sleek, well saddled, and docile for 
mules. A ride of four or five miles into the 
country results in leaving the newly arrived trav- 
eler in a state of rapture bordering on imbecility. 

On leaving Port Kastro one enters the Campo, 
an irregular plain on the eastern side of Scio, 
stretching to the mountains, and fringed by the 
yellow sands of a beach kissed by the silver foam 
of the JSgean, beyond whose waves loom the faint 
roseate ranges of Anatolia. The Campo is covered 
with the most luxuriant gardens, orange planta- 
tions, and trellised graperies, each of which is en- 
tered through a stately gateway, surmounted by a 
summer-house and a porter's lodge. Over the gate 
are sculptured the armorial bearings of a family 
perhaps long since passed away, and on entering 
the grounds the visitor sees before him an elegant 
dwelling of cut stone, whose second story, where 
the owner resides, is approached by a noble stair- 



60 THE WORLD'S PARADISES 

way, protected by a massively elegant balustrade. 
The windows and doors are all surmounted by 
archivolts of different-colored stones. The spa- 
cious, marble-floored apartment gives a delicious! y 
cool and hospitable aspect to the mansion ; a divan 
is spread between the windows, and the breeze, 
which bears to us the moan of the sea, also wafts 
into the halls the subtile fragrance of jasmines, 
syringas, and roses, and the honeyed scent of the 
linden's pendulous, plume-like blooms. 

From the flat, parapeted roof one gazes at 
evening over a landscape touched with the ten- 
derest of hues, and inclosed by the amethyst of 
the sea. As the twilight comes on, and the ar- 
gent disk of the full moon looms, a white fire, 
above the slumbering groves, diffusing a pale gold- 
en haze over the enchanted isle, the hoot of the owl 
adds to the sentiment of the hour, and the night- 
ingale's improvisations increase the fervor of our 
enthusiasm, and lend rapture to the splendor of a 
night in paradise. 

Oh the beauty and the glory of those land- 
scapes of Scio ! Oh the softness of the clime, 
never too warm or too cool ! When did we tire 
of the loveliness that surrounded us? When 
did the time pass wearily ? Never ! Our stay 
there was like a long dream of delight, an un- 
broken reverie, in a land where we fed on the 
lotus and drank the waters of Lethe ; never be- 
fore, never since, have I passed two months of 



SCIO. 61 

such unalloyed happiness as the days that glided 
so quietly away on Scio's isle. In the morning 
we roved among orange -groves or galloped by the 
seaside ; we had our siesta at noonday, bathed in 
the sea at sunset, then watched the moon looming 
above the Scian shore, and then lay down to plea- 
sant dreams. 

Often in our morning rides we met the peasant 
maids in picturesque costume, spinning as they 
rode or walked, with the shuttle under the left 
arm, and holding the thread and spindle in the 
right hand, as described by Homer in the Iliad. 
Not unfrequently we saw a woman mounted on a 
mule, singing lullaby to an infant at the breast, 
while another child sat behind her on the long 
saddle, and still another curly-headed urchin clung 
to the crupper, while the rude tinkle of the mule- 
bell chimed with the sportive voices of the chil- 
dren and the crooning song of the mother. 

Mules are chiefly used as beasts of burden in 
Scio, and riding is the habit of all. " If wishes 
were horses, then beggars might ride," is an old 
proverb which is literally interpreted in this cu- 
rious island ; for even the beggars came to our 
gate on borrowed mules. 

There is an element which adds a singular in- 
terest, a quiet pathos, to all one sees in Scio. Not 
all of the giddy multitudes who hurry by the 
Place de la Concorde at Paris forget what scenes 
that center of gay festivities beheld when it was 



62 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

the site of the guillotine during the Reign of Ter- 
ror. Through all the pomp and revelry of to-day 
the pensive mind yet hears the wail of that epoch 
of blood, that shall echo down the ages while time 
endures, as silent but as loud and persistent as the 
voice of conscience. And thus it is at Scio. Go 
where you will, eat, drink, and be merry, drain 
the goblet to the lees, until the fancy is intoxi- 
cated with the mild beneficence of the elixir of its 
clime, with the splendor of its scenery and the 
eyes of its maidens, black as night and perilous as 
fire, that shake the soul with longing and despair ; 
yet evermore, like the slave at the elbow of the 
triumphing Caesar, stands the genius of the isle, 
where she can whisper : " What recks it all ? Give 
me back my lost wealth, my sons and daughters 
swept away by the torch and the sword ! " 

Ah ! that is the mystery that broods over it 
all, the memory of that terrible desolation and 
doom that befell Scio in the Greek Revolution — 
a horror which there are yet some who have sur- 
vived to repeat the story of the wildest tragedy 
of the nineteenth century. 

Before ever the Turks came, ages ago, the 
Genoese had captured and beautified the isle. 
They introduced their customs and their archi- 
tecture, and noble blood ran in the veins of many 
of the proud Italians. There are still Justiniani 
in Scio who remind us of what was once one of 
the most noted names of the Mediterranean. 



SCIO. 63 

But, after the splendor of their dominion had 
endured for centuries, a fleet of the Ottomans, 
under the great Pialee, anchored in the roads, 
the banner of the Genoese was lowered, and the 
Turk took possession of the Fior di Levante, 
and made it an appanage of the Sultana Valide 
or Queen Mother of the Empire. It is to the 
latter cause that the island owes the fact that, 
with one exception, it has been treated with a 
leniency that enabled Scio, before the revolution, 
to reach a position of wealth and intelligence un- 
equaled by any other subject provinces of the 
Turks. 

When the revolution broke out the Sciotes 
refrained from hostilities, and were unmolested, 
until some turbulent Samians came over and laid 
siege to the Turkish garrison at Port Kastro. 
This naturally infuriated the Moslems, and, be- 
lieving or assuming that the inoffensive Sciotes 
had invited the Samians over, a fleet and an 
army were sent against the doomed island. At 
that time there was a flourishing university at 
Port Kastro, and the population of Scio num- 
bered over one hundred thousand. But, after 
the Turkish hordes had ravaged the island and 
massacred the people, not above twenty -five 
thousand remained, the rest had been murdered 
or carried into slavery, and there was scarcely a 
villa that had not been more or less injured by 
the fury of the assailants. Three thousand were 



64 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

burned or suffocated in the Convent of St. Minas 
alone, and almost every house is haunted by a 
tragedy of its own that is full of pathos and 
horror. 

When the Greeks had recovered from their 
first grief at the narrative of the sufferings of 
Scio, a cry of vengeance arose from the nation. 
Large sums were contributed for the fitting out 
of a naval armament, and the ports of Spezzia, 
Hydra, and Psarra, resounded with the din of 
preparation. Soon a confederate fleet, command- 
ed by Miaulis, whose strength lay rather in the 
valor and skill of its seamen than the number or 
size of its vessels, was seen cruising around the 
island, reconnoitering the enemy's station. On 
the night of the 18th Kara Ali proclaimed an im- 
posing festival throughout his fleet in view of the 
expected appearance of the new moon, which he 
was destined never again to behold. But while 
the Turks were wasting their time in rioting, the 
Greeks had matured, and were now preparing to 
execute, a terrible plan of retribution. Constan- 
tine Kanaris, a youth of Psarra, boldly volunteered 
with George Pepinis, of Hydra, to conduct two 
fire-ships into the very midst of the enemy's 
lines, which now included thirty-eight sail. A 
band of chosen seamen manned the brigs, with 
which on the 18th they started on their perilous 
undertaking, escorted by four other vessels that 
were to keep in the vicinity, and pick up the 



SCIO. 65 

bruldtiers when they betook themselves to their 
launches. 

The brigs beat across the southern mouth of 
the strait, under false colors. As evening set in, 
a portentous gloom overhung the deep, but the 
night was tranquil, only a fresh land breeze shak- 
ing the shrouds of the Turkish armada which lay 
a league from the shore. At midnight the brigs 
wore ship, and stood up the channel, until they 
found themselves in the midst of the enemy. 
Kanaris's bruldt grappled the huge bulk of the 
flag-ship. He touched the train, and as he pushed 
off in his open barge, gave the battle-cry of the 
ancient hosts of imperial Byzantium, " Victory to 
the Cross ! " which at that solemn hour rang on 
the ear of the startled foe like his death-knell. 
Pepinis sought to fire the rear-admiral's two- 
decker, but, before the flames had been effectually 
communicated, the bruldt swung off, and, driving 
through the fleet, an object of terror, set fire to a 
third line-of -battle ship. Both of the latter ves- 
sels, though saved for the present, were rendered 
unfit for future service. 

While these scenes were enacting, in other 
quarters of the roadstead, Kara Ali's magnifi- 
cent three-decker presented a sublime and appall- 
ing spectacle. The roaring flames, leaping from 
spar to spar, enveloped the noble vessel from 
truck to the water's edge in one vast sheet of 
fire ; the ruddy glow tinged the lurid heavens 
5 



66 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

to such an extent that the horror-smitten inhab- 
itants of Smyrna many miles distant, waking up 
at midnight, saw above the mountains which over- 
hung their port a crimson light in the southwest- 
ern sky like the radiance which in the east be- 
tokens the approach of day. To add to the so- 
lemnity of the scene above the thunder of the 
rushing flames and the screams of the dying, arose 
the deep boom of the doomed vessel's carronades 
which went off one by one, as they were succes- 
sively reached by the conflagration, like minute 
guns, fired to celebrate the obsequies of those who 
perished on that memorable night. 

At two o'clock in the morning the flag-ship 
blew up. The vessel contained twenty-two hun- 
dred and eighty-six souls, of whom only one hun- 
dred and eighty reached the shore alive. The 
commanders of the various ships of the fleet were 
lost ; and Kara Ali himself, as he was escaping 
from the burning hulk, was mortally wounded by 
a falling timber, and expired at daybreak. 

Little by little Scio has recovered from the 
hurricane of war, but has not yet reached its 
former population or wealth. And one can 
easily perceive what a melancholy interest is 
added to the beauty of the villas and the scenery, 
when he meets survivors of that appalling catas- 
trophe, and hears them relate in moving accents 
the story of the scenes they saw with their own 
eyes. 



SCIO. 67 

Still, like others, the people can not always 
sup on horrors, and something of their old-time 
gayety survives, and gives life to the merriment 
of their gala-days, which are many. Each vil- 
lage has its special festival, each saint his holi- 
day. The vintage and the harvest also have 
their wassail and dances, where one can imagine 
that the spirit of Anacreon or of grand old 
Homer still presides. Is not this the isle of Ho- 
mer ? and lo, there on its western shore still clus- 
ter the peasant-huts of Yolisso, reputed for over 
three thousand years to be the residence of the 
blind bard. Is not that enough ? Has any one 
the daring to fly in the face of such a hoary tra- 
dition ? 

The most picturesque festival of Scio is the 
Eve of St. John. It is celebrated with fireworks, 
bonfires, and the crack of old muskets, which give 
a singular animation to the scenery. Before every 
house ring the strains of timbrel and guitar, and 
the blithe songs of the dancers, until a late 
hour. 

The quaintest and most picturesque portion of 
Scio is the mastic district called Sclavia, which 
extends from St. Minas to the southern extremity 
of the isle. The surface is more broken than the 
Campo, and the hamlets of the peasantry are cu- 
riously grouped in the hollows or on the hillsides. 
The old moss-covered stone-huts are sometimes 
joined together by roofs solidly constructed over 



68 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

dark lanes, while here and there an old-time tower 
or villa rises grandly above the landscape ; some- 
times a stately avenue of cypresses leads up to a 
venerable mansion, where an equally venerable 
steward will repeat the tragedy of the place with 
a dramatic pathos that lives in the memory long 
after one has left the isle. 

From the heights of Sclavia are seen the out- 
lines of Samos and Icaria, melting into the vapory 
offing of the iEgean, and recalling many a fair le- 
gend that causes the fancy to kindle and the heart 
to beat with enthusiasm. 

It is in the mastic cantons that the lentisk 
grows so abundantly as to supply the island with 
a large share of its revenue. Most of the gum- 
mastic which appears in the boudoir of the Ori- 
ental lady, or is employed to flavor cordials, is 
gathered from the trees of Sclavia. The pistachio 
also grows abundantly in Scio, and the almonds 
of the island are exceptionally fine. 

Do people ever die in Scio nowadays of aught 
but old age ? Doubtless ; but they have an un- 
usually good opportunity of living there longer 
than in many other parts of the globe, for the 
wind, from whichever quarter it blows, comes di- 
rectly off the sea, and is laden with tonic quali- 
ties. It must be conceded that the position of the 
mountains is such as to allow the raw northerly 
winds full sweep during the winter season. In- 
clement days are, therefore, not infrequent at 



NAPLES. 69 

that time, while the construction of the houses 
is adapted rather for warm than cold weather. 
But I am convinced that from March until June, 
inclusive, and from September until November, 
the invalid can derive great benefit from the pure, 
temperate, and delicious air of Scio, and thus per- 
haps add materially to the length of his days. 



NAPLES. 



When we sail westward from Scio, and, thread- 
ing the Straits of Messina, arrive at Naples, and 
are told that it was founded by the nymph Par- 
thenope, we are reduced to the dilemma either of 
accepting the actuality of at least one nymph, 
which would carry the whole question of mythol- 
ogy, or of denying that Naples was ever founded 
at all. However, leaving aside all such archae- 
ological questions, we find there not only the 
choicest spot in Hesperia, but also that, like most 
of the world's paradises, its amazing wealth of 
attractions receives a tone from the sea which 
caresses its shores, but eludes it when it seeks to 
inclose it in a lasting embrace. Amethyst and 
turquoise are the colors of the sea around the 
shores of Naples — amethyst verging to purple as 
its surface fades off to meet the sky, and turquoise 
when we look into its depths. The curving, sickle- 



70 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

like Bay of Naples resembles a circlet of emerald 
and gold inclosing lapis lazuli, and like an annular 
ring surmounted at the head by the cone of Ve- 
suvius blazing at night like a magnificent ruby. 
When one gazes at the flames shooting skyward 
or rolling liquid fire to the sea, he finds it difficult 
to imagine that, when Spartacus led the gladiators 
to revolt against Rome, he made his headquarters 
in the crater of Vesuvius, which at that time had 
been dormant from immemorial ages, and was 
overgrown with forest and underwood. 

Such is the expanse of the sail-flecked Bay of 
Naples, that the city, except when one is near to 
it, forms but an inconsiderable object in the land- 
scape, which thus depends for its effect chiefly 
upon the superb coloring of natural objects and 
the symmetrical combination of lines toward one 
common center — the towering cone of Vesuvius, 
which rises first by a long, gentle slope, and ter- 
minates somewhat abruptly by a more rapid ascent 
near the summit. 

The majestic stone-pines that cluster on the 
projecting crags or shade the grounds of many a 
romantic villa, and the vineyards thriving on the 
volcanic soil, add variety and beauty to a scene 
that has the inestimable quality of growing on 
one's esteem, like the gradually approaching par- 
allels of a besieging army, until it carries our en- 
thusiasm by storm. Like Cleopatra, " age can not 
wither, time can not stale its infinite variety." 



NAPLES. 71 

The perpetually shifting scenes of life among 
the people, the picturesqueness of the native craft, 
gayly carved and painted, and the number of ex- 
cursions that may be made to adjacent places of 
interest — -Baise or Capri, Pompeii, Salerno, Posi- 
lippo, Sorrento — all aid to render Naples a charm- 
ing resort, in winter and spring, especially from 
February until May. In those entrancing days 
one may well declare that false was he who first 
said, " See Naples and then die " ; for, once it is 
seen, one burns with the desire to live. Who 
talks of dying with such superb prospects in view, 
such a soft, delicious air fanning his temples and 
holding this wonderful lachrymse christi at his 
lips ? What a clime is this, when even the vol- 
cano that destroys cities condescends to grow 
such a vintage on the sides of its precipices of 
lava ! 

When summer comes, however, we are re- 
minded that the city of Naples can be in no 
sense a health resort during the hot season. In 
no city of Europe is population so densely packed 
together as in the capital of Campania. Its teem- 
ing multitudes swarm like bees in a hive. For 
the large majority poverty is the common lot, and 
many thousands live in the most abject squalor. 
The filth of some quarters of the city is beyond 
description, while the sewers emptying into the 
port directly in front of the Marino or seaside 
promenade, called the Villa Reale, pollute the 



72 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

air and reek with pestilential stenches. The pic- 
turesqueness of the lower orders in Naples is emi- 
nently and essentially the picturesqueness of dirt, 
so eloquently apostrophized by Mr. Ruskin. 

Your eater of macaroni, lying in the sun, the 
incarnation of indolence, the lazzaroni who dive 
in the harbor for pennies, or sleep in the streets 
without a roof over them at night, and carry a 
countless population on their backs, may be artis- 
tically interesting in cool weather ; but when the 
broiling days of August arrive, and the rage of 
the dog-star, then hail the trim felucca, spread 
her white wings, and speed to Capri. 

And this leads us to observe the real value of 
the Bay of Naples as a residence : it is because 
of the many charming spots within easy distance 
from the city to which the tourist or the invalid 
may resort — places not only of great historic in- 
terest, like PomjDeii, but of extraordinary loveli- 
ness, like the orange-groves of Castellamare, or the 
fairy isle of Capri, lying off the end of the south- 
ern horn of the Bay of Naples, and acting some- 
what as a breakwater against southwesterly gales. 
About nine miles in circumference, a mere lime- 
stone rock, it yet offers within its narrow limits 
scenery of great beauty, variety, and grandeur, 
and a climate that is beneficial to all except in- 
valids so far affected by phthisis that they find 
the northerly winds too vigorous even in that 
balmy latitude ; for, as the south side of Capri is 



NAPLES. 73 

a tremendous perpendicular precipice, falling hun- 
dreds of feet to the blue sea far below, it is very 
difficult to find a site that is not exposed to those 
winds. 

The ruins of the palace and baths of Tiberius 
still remain on Capri, where he passed the last 
years of his life in debaucheries that have be- 
come proverbial. Here, in this elysium, where 
one would think the serene purity of the sur- 
rounding sea would have an elevating influence, 
this tyrant lived in a manner that dwells to this 
day in the memory of the islanders like a dream 
of the Inferno. As one saunters over the lovely, 
sunlit, vine-clustered crags of Capri, or reposes 
under the greenery of the treilised terraces, gazes 
over the quivering azure of the mysterious sea, 
fading off to unknown lands under the heat of 
a southern sun, and listens to the tinkle of the 
goat-bells among the rocks in the calmness of the 
sunset hour, he wonders why the memory of foul 
deeds should so linger to pollute some of earth's 
fairest scenes. 

The blue grotto of Capri is justly famous ; the 
exquisite tint of the water under the rocks touches 
the emotions like a delicate strain of music. I re- 
member a similar phenomenon, that is less known 
and visited, in a cave near Cabo Giram, on the 
southern coast of Madeira. The Devil's Hole, at 
Bermuda, is another instance. In each case the 
phenomenon is doubtless caused by the great 



74 THE WORLD'S PARADISE?. 

evaporation produced by steady beat, aided per- 
haps by tbe absence of high tides, thus resulting 
in an increase of the saline density of the water. 
Although the blue in the color of water may be, 
and doubtless is, sometimes due to other causes, 
it is now a well-known fact that the azure of sea- 
water is generally in proportion to the quantity of 
salt it holds in solution. 

Those who are fond of quails, fresh, tender, 
and savory, may find their appetite for this sort 
of game gratified at Capri, whither those birds 
are wafted by the southerly spring winds, and 
wearily alight for rest. Too many of them find 
it there in the net or the gun of the fowler, and 
never get beyond Capri. With them it is liter- 
ally, " See Naples and then die." 



CORSICA. 



Coesica looms grandly above the sea, her 
lofty mountains capped with eternal snows and 
rosy-red at sunset, a truly magnificent spectacle. 
The weather was fine the first time I approached 
it, and the white lateen sails of the large fishing- 
boats and the scarlet caps of the fishermen ad- 
mirably harmonized with the deep blue of the 
sea, and, as a foreground, greatly assisted the im- 
agination in grasping an idea of the grandeur of 



CORSICA. 75 

the ranges soaring in the interior of the island to 
a height of nearly ten thousand feet. 

This was on approaching by the Straits of 
Maddalena, although Corsica, everywhere moun- 
tainous, looms up sternly from all sides, faced 
with vast granitic precipices, seamed by tartarean 
gorges, and clothed with dense forests of chest- 
nut, and on the upper crags with larch and fir. It 
fitly seems the birthplace of him who shook the 
world with the stupendous power of his intellect, 
for there Napoleon Bonaparte was born. It is a 
curious circumstance, which nobody seems to have 
observed, that on the opposite side of the strait, 
on the northern end of Sardinia, and directly 
facing Corsica, is an enormous rock pedestaled 
on a cliff, and shaped like a striding bear. Was 
it not a bear, the bear of Russia, that overthrew 
the power of Napoleon ? 

This mighty soldier seems by the law of selec- 
tion to have been deduced from the long, sturdy 
struggles of the Corsicans. After centimes of re- 
sistance to Genoese and Gaul, and internecine strife 
among their mountain fastnesses, the Corsicans at 
last produced Napoleon. Those who make a phil- 
osophical study of the development of man do 
not seem to have given the attention one might 
expect to an investigation of the ethnic laws that 
operated in the rise of the Napoleonic dynasty. 
Here, on a small island, concrete and distinct in 
its history, ample opportunity is offered for exam- 



76 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

ining into the laws which develop great intel- 
lects. 

The Corsicans themselves are well aware of 
the importance of the subject. They are all fa- 
miliar with the events in the career of the great 
Corsican ; they all arrogate to themselves a share 
in his glory, and boldly assume that it was not 
France that conquered Corsica, but that they 
have taken France ; for it was the thoroughly 
Corsican son of a companion of Paoli who so 
long resisted the inroads of the French, that 
raised France out of the ruins of the Revolution 
to a new life, founded the empire, and at thirty- 
four mounted the throne which he had created 
for a nation that he found soaked in blood and 
smoking with the lurid embers of the Revolu- 
tion. 

Indeed, so earnestly do the spirited islanders 
identify themselves with the founder of the em- 
pire, that almost every shepherd tending his tawny 
flock on the mountains, almost every little shop- 
keeper of Ajaccio or Calvi, will assure you that 
he is connected with the family of the Emperor. 
This pride in Napoleon took a novel form early 
in the century. Aided by an English fleet and 
army, Paoli, after many years' exile, returned to 
his native isle in 1795, and so successfully attacked 
the French garrisons in several of the seaports, 
that the Corsicans rose en masse against the hated 
yoke of France, and their representatives assem- 



. CORSICA. 77 

bled at Corte, then the capital of Corsica, unani- 
mously voted to exchange the oppressive rule of 
the French for the protection of Great Britain, 
and accepted Lord Minto as viceroy. But, when 
the exploits of Bonaparte rang over Europe, the 
Corsicans hastened to renew their allegiance to 
France, and the British made the best of a bad 
job by evacuating the island. Since that time 
there has been no further question about the au- 
thority of France in Corsica. 

There is no doubt that the foreign rule of so 
able and enterprising, and, on the whole, well- 
regulated a people as the French, has been of 
very great advantage to Corsica. Until they ex- 
changed the Genoese for the French domination, 
the Corsicans were in some respects closely allied 
to barbarism. Little or no effort to improve their 
island was attempted. Few or no roads existed ; 
the vast abundance of the annual harvest of chest- 
nuts easily provided all with at least a subsistence ; 
and commerce was confined almost entirely to the 
coral fisheries. 

The French have opened roads that entirely 
surround the island, and are projecting a railway 
along the eastern coast from Bastia to Bonifacio. 
On that side of Corsica the mountains are low and 
calcareous, and in the course of ages the rains 
have washed down the soil to the sea and pro- 
duced a low alluvial plain several miles wide, ex- 
tending almost the whole length of the island. 



78 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

This alluvial strip is crossed by streams and cov- 
ered in places by marshes and feverish lakes, and 
reeks with miasma. But it is the only really un- 
wholesome district in Corsica. 

The western half of the island is of granitic 
formation, terminating at the coast in abrupt 
and frowning precipices grooved by tremendous 
gorges, and rising in the interior to such heights 
as Monte Rotondo and Monte d'Oro, respectively 
9,246 and 8,720 feet above the level of the sea. 
On the summit of the former are two small lakes 
of great depth. Near the center of Corsica is an 
elevated table-land, where the capital was situ- 
ated in former ages. The map of Corsica sug- 
gests the back of a tortoise. The configuration 
of the mountains resembles the laminations of 
the shell, and the long promontory of Cape Cor- 
so at the northern end is not unlike the head 
and neck of the reptile projecting beyond the 
shell, and taking a cautious survey of the envi- 
roning seas. 

But in nothing has the firm, orderly rule of 
the French in Corsica been more apparent and 
beneficial than in the suppression of the terrible 
code of the vendetta, and the brigandage which 
resulted from it, and prevented the improvement 
of the island. It pervaded all classes, and for 
ages had kept society in a state verging on ex- 
treme barbarism. The occasional deeds of hero- 
ism, the occasional picturesque and romantic inci- 



COKSICA. 79 

dents which attended this savage custom, were 
but a slight palliation for a system that brooded 
over the island like a fatal blight. 

In many half -civilized communities, in which 
the regular practice of organized legal authority 
seemed insufficient for the protection of the indi- 
vidual from insult and injury, it has too often 
been more or less a half-permitted custom for in- 
dividuals to take the law into their own hands, 
and assert by violence their right to immunity 
from attack. But this has naturally resulted in 
persistent attempts at revenge, as both parties in 
such cases consider themselves in the right. Hence 
results a feud between families or communities, 
lasting sometimes for generations. When once 
established and tacitly approved by society, there 
is no custom that is more difficult to eradicate ; 
for the highest sentiment of a community, that of 
honor, is perverted in its favor ; and what began 
originally as a crime, winked at by the people 
owing to palliating circumstances, becomes in the 
end almost a duty demanded of him who would 
preserve the respect of the circle in which he 
moves. This is well illustrated by the contin- 
uance of lynch law in some of our best-regulated 
States, the wicked immunity too often allowed to 
the murderer who avenges marital infidelity by 
the revolver rather than by resorting to courts of 
justice, and the long and bloody family feuds 
which are yet quite too frequent among some 



80 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

of the best families of the Southern States of 
America. 

Among the Arabs the vendetta has been a 
strong social characteristic. It existed until re- 
cently in the south of Greece, and I have known 
of men remaining concealed there for ten years 
in their own houses or towers, without even ven- 
turing forth except on the back of a woman. Thus 
alone could they hope to escape the musket of the 
avenger, who, without any abatement of vigilance, 
watched and thirsted for their blood. The vin- 
dictiveness of the Albanians continues to this day 
to be almost a byword in the Levant, and men of 
that race who have an injury to avenge have been 
thrown into prison sometimes on a trumped-up 
charge by those who had given the cause of of- 
fense, and have been kept confined a lifetime by 
bribing the jailer. I considered myself very for- 
tunate, after a fight with one of these revengeful 
ruffians, in being able to leave the place a few 
weeks later, and thus keeping my heart safe in- 
side of my ribs. 

But nowhere has the institution of the vendetta 
been more thoroughly organized and accepted as 
a social custom, and nowhere has it been eradi- 
cated with more difficulty, than in Corsica. This 
tacit code, accepted by the local traditions of cen- 
turies, was as bloody as the laws of Draco. All 
offenses were liable to be washed out in blood, 
according to the disposition of the one offended. 



CORSICA. 81 

The women as well as the men took the law into 
their own hands. They not only incited their male 
relations to avenge any injuries done to them, but 
also too often murdered their enemies themselves. 
The seducer who failed to fulfill his promises of 
marriage knew too well what to expect ; and the 
woman who thus avenged herself was regarded 
as a heroine, and ballads were composed which re- 
cited the bravery she had displayed. 

The time is coming when it will be understood 
the world over that murder is crime under all cir- 
cumstances except self-defense ; and that in cases 
of seduction, whether the woman be married or 
single, the fault is no less hers than her partner's, 
and to deal out death to him alone is an unjust 
division of penalty. Women are free agents ; and 
if men are more aggressive, women, on the other 
hand, have in their power stronger motives for 
resistance to temptation. 

At any rate, in Corsica, after a man had been 
assassinated, for whatever cause, his family as- 
sumed as a duty the avenging of his death ; and a 
vendetta or family feud began, which lasted so 
long as any male remained alive on either side. 
As every one went armed, reprisal was liable at 
any moment. Laborers sought their fields with 
dread, not knowing but that their enemy was lurk- 
ing behind the next bush. Others concealed them- 
selves in the upper story of their stone houses, 
protecting the staircase with an iron door perfo- 
6 



82 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

rated with loopholes, through which they could 
shoot an approaching enemy. One unfortunate 
victim proscribed by this terrible code remained 
thus for fifteen years in his house. At last he 
was told that his enemy had left the ambush for 
a few hours and gone to the city. Taking a long 
breath of relief, the forlorn prisoner once more 
stepped forth outside of his door, and trod the 
earth with the unutterable satisfaction of one who 
unexpectedly gains his freedom after a period of 
hopeless bondage. Again, at least for a while, he 
was a free man. Nature looked joyous, and his 
heart leaped once more with the exhilaration of his 
younger days. But at that moment a ball pierced 
his bosom. The avenger of fifteen years had not 
relaxed his vigilance, and his long waiting was re- 
paid at last. 

What sort of society is this, in which such 
things are not only permitted but approved? 
And yet there are some in our country who by 
their actions almost make one think they would 
import to this happy land one of the most atro- 
cious relics of a savage life that have come down 
to our century to give us a glimpse of what those 
good old times were of which some pessimists 
have so much to say. 

In this small island, with only the population 
of a moderate-sized city, the assassinations in 
thirty years alone reached the enormous figure of 
4,300. A natural result of the vendetta was the 



CORSICA. 83 

creation of one of the most remarkable systems of 
brigandage ever known. Many of those who 
avenged their honor by assassination, instead of 
betaking themselves for shelter to their houses, 
escaped to the mountains, where they lived on 
game or chestnuts of the forest, with occasional 
supplies covertly furnished them by their friends. 
They haunted the caves of the highest mountains 
in bands, and as a rule only attacked travelers for 
actual robbery when urged by pinching necessity. 
Thus a community averaging upward of a thousand 
men, every one of whom was a murderer, was per- 
manently withdrawn from the able-bodied pro- 
ducers of Corsica, and acted as a terror to enter- 
prise, and openly defied all attempt to reduce them 
to order. Public opinion, it must be owned, was 
entirely to blame for this wretched state of af- 
fairs ; for the brigands were considered respect- 
able men, who had been brought to this condition 
through the misfortune, entirely beyond their 
control, as was assumed, of practicing the bloody 
code of the vendetta. 

After many abortive attempts to crush both 
the vendetta and its corollary — brigandage — in. 
Corsica, the French Government finally decided to 
stamp out this accursed system, by measures of 
the most uncompromising and decisive character. 
Not only was every assassin and brigand exe- 
cuted as soon as captured, as a common miscre- 
ant, but a law was passed and rigidly enforced 



84 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

making it a penal offense for any one to carry- 
arms of any description, not excepting such as de- 
sired merely to follow the chase. This law was 
only slightly relaxed after the outrages it was 
intended to prevent had been rendered infamous 
and nearly extinguished. Another law was also 
most rigidly enforced, which came home to the 
whole community ; it was the law of conceal- 
ment, which rendered every one liable to impris- 
onment who was known to aid or harbor any 
brigand or assassin. Whole families were thus 
sometimes thrown into duress, and kept there 
until the capture or death of the offender. This 
measure did more to break up the system than 
any other means employed for the purpose. 

In addition to all this machinery for restoring 
social order to Corsica, the Government constant- 
ly employed during many years a large force of 
gendarmerie to ferret out the brigands. Many 
daring exploits, many hair-breadth escapes, char- 
acterized this mountain warfare ; and sometimes, 
too, a certain chivalry was displayed, which gave 
a tinge of romance to a conflict little known out 
of the narrow limits to which it was confined. 
But the efforts of the Government have been 
crowned with success at last. The highways and 
by-paths of Corsica are as safe as any in Europe ; 
and, although it will be ages before the vindic- 
tiveness of the hot-blooded islanders shall be alto- 
gether eradicated, any one who lives in an orderly 



CORSICA. 85 

manner, minds his own business, and controls his 
passions, can now live in Corsica unmolested, and 
die in his bed like a Christian. 

Considered as a resort for tourists, Corsica 
offers itself as one of the most romantic and vari- 
ously attractive spots in the Mediterranean ; and 
that is saying a great deal, as any one who is 
familiar with that sea very well knows. The 
mountains abound with game, including such live- 
ly sport as wild boars. For the artist the gran- 
deur and beauty of the scenery are highly inspir- 
ing. The sublimity of the precipices and snow-clad 
peaks is unsurpassed by any other landscapes on 
the shores of the Mediterranean, and Nature, ever 
prolific with her charms in the Italian seas, has 
lavished the splendors of her coloring in the tints 
with which she has clothed this magnificent isl- 
and. The ports, guarded by the ruddy pepper- 
box turrets and crenellated ramparts of the mid- 
dle ages, rising by sands fringed with gayly 
painted feluccas and bare-legged fisher-folk, ever 
present us with satisfying objects of contempla- 
tion ; while the purple mountains, springing from 
the sea, soar in the background against the dome 
of blue, and the green azure of the Mediterra- 
nean, fading into purple in the offing, incloses the 
landscape with an indescribable sense of repose. 

The vast chestnut-forests of Corsica are scarce- 
ly equaled by any other vegetable phenomenon of 
Europe for impressive beauty, and fairly rival 



86 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

those of Madeira. Together with the tender gray 
of the olive-groves, they soften the asperity of a 
scenery that would otherwise be sometimes al- 
most too stern and savage to win our affections, 
while it might command our respect. 

As regards climate, Corsica can scarcely be 
recommended for either the sick or the well 
during the summer, because of the malaria which 
prevails in too many quarters at that season. 
But from October to May this objection does not 
exist, and then the invalid may derive benefit 
from a residence in Corsica. 

It is to the western coast, however, that the 
stranger will devote most of his time, for the 
low mountains and alluvial plains of the eastern 
seaboard, from Bonifacio to Bastia, are but thin- 
ly peopled, and the scenery is inferior to that of 
the other side of the island. Bastia is the chief 
commercial port of Corsica, and will doubtless 
long continue so, owing to the advantages of- 
fered by its small but secure anchorage and its 
nearness to the continent. In good weather 
steamers make the passage between Bastia and 
Leghorn in six or seven hours. A few hours' 
ride from this town, on the central ridge of Cape 
Corso, and near to Pino, are the remains of the 
tower where Seneca the Philosopher passed his 
exile when banished hither from Rome. His 
philosophy was entirely of that sort which one 
may hold in theory but not in practice ; and 



CORSICA. 87 

therefore this sage accepted the decrees of Fate 
with impatience, and railed most vigorously 
against the savage people and country of Cor- 
sica. Nature as such had but very few charms 
for the ancients ; but it is easily comprehensible 
that Seneca could find little to entertain him in 
that island, when we consider that it is only in 
recent years that it has emerged from its semi- 
barbarous condition. 

But the place where, in all Corsica, the 
stranger can doubtless find himself best situated 
for the winter, both for climate and lodging, 
is Ajaccio, the birthplace of Bonaparte, whose 
house is still shown, together with its old furni- 
ture. Of late years this choice little city of some 
fifteen thousand souls has became a resort for 
numerous English and German tourists searching 
for a winter sanitarium, and with abundant rea- 
son. The hotel-keepers are gradually learning to 
appreciate the possibilities of Ajaccio as a resort, 
and a steady improvement is evident in the 
quality of their accommodations, while a number 
of cozy villas are ready to lease for the season on 
moderate terms. The society is also good, and 
the promenades about the town are rendered 
agreeable by noble avenues of plane-trees. 

The Bay of Ajaccio is one of the most charm- 
ing and poetically beautiful spots among many 
which enchant the eye and captivate the fancy. 
It is indeed a noble prospect that greets one as 



88 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

he walks the quay of Ajaccio, and gazes over the 
imperial blue of the sea, looking southward. 
Around him are lemon and orange groves, and 
the circular sweep of the bay is inclosed by the 
majestic range of mountains which form the cita- 
del of Corsica. Well may one exclaim in his 
enthusiasm, What place more fitting to be the 
birthplace of him who carried the eagles of 
France from the Pyramids to Moscow ? Yonder 
mountains nursed in his soul the mighty and 
energetic thought, and the endless expanses of 
the sea fired him with a restless longing to find 
scope for the expansion of his Titanic powers. 

But these grand, gray mountains, that seem 
to hedge Ajaccio landward and crowd it down to 
the water's edge, also serve the useful purpose of 
shielding it from the piercing winds of the north. 
And thus we find that, to the amenity of its 
scenery, Ajaccio adds the highly important ad- 
vantage of being a valuable sanitarium for in- 
valids during the winter season. The mildness 
of the temperature is rendered yet more equable 
by the prevalence of gentle but regular sea- 
breezes, that blow almost with the steadiness of 
a trade- wind. 

There are many delightful excursions that 
may be made from Ajaccio by diligence or pri- 
vate carriage over the winding roads that creep 
up the sides of the precipices. One is alternately 
overwhelmed by the grandeur of the scenery or 



CORSICA. 89 

charmed by the idyllic loveliness of the green 
nooks steeped in quietude that burst upon him 
unawares. 

One of the most interesting of these trips is to 
the valley of Liamone. Zigzagging up the scars 
of a curtain of granite until we are over two 
thousand feet above the sea, we look down into 
a paradise many hundred feet below, lapped in 
repose and seemingly shut out from a restless and 
troublous world by stupendous cliffs or forest- 
clad slopes, that environ and embrace it on three 
sides, while on the west the blue Mediterranean 
tenderly laves the yellow sands of the shore. 

Nor is the seclusion of this valley wholly in 
appearance, for on inquiry we learn that the smil- 
ing village of Carghese, on a promontory jutting 
into the sea, actually contains a community which 
in language, customs, dress, and religion is as 
distinct from the rest of the population of Corsica 
as if it were five hundred miles away. The ex- 
planation is a curious one. Five hundred years 
ago, when the Turks were sweeping over the Le- 
vant, ravaging and capturing the lands of the 
Cross, a band of Creeks, flying from the sword 
of the invader, sailed westward in search of an 
asylum, like the Spaniards who fled in the eighth 
century from the Moors with St. Brandon, and, 
according to the legend, founded a colony in one 
of the Atlantic isles. These Greek fugitives came 
at last to Corsica, and were permitted to land. 



90 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

The valley of Liamone was assigned to them, and 
there they have remained to this day, never inter- 
marrying with the Corsicans, and preserving the 
spirit and traditions of the classic land from 
which their ancestors fled five centuries ago. 

Another most delightful excursion can be 
made to the delicious valley and village of Santa 
Lucia di Tallano, south of Ajaccio, secluded 
among the mountains, over fifteen hundred feet 
above the sea. The famous mineral baths of 
Orezza, in the so-called chestnut country south of 
Bastia, afford another resort, charming not only 
for its scenery, but for the exceptional coolness of 
the temperature during the summer, which rarely 
ranges above 70°. One of the springs is chalyb- 
eate, while another is strongly impregnated with 
iron and sulphur. They are beneficial to those 
who suffer from malarial fever or cutaneous mala- 
dies. But the advantages of Corsica to the invalid 
are chiefly climatic. Those who are in need of 
mineral waters are better accommodated at the 
better known mineral resorts of the neighboring 
continent. 

In this outline sketch of Corsica I have only 
indicated in a general manner a few of the at- 
tractions and advantages of an earthly paradise 
that is destined to become one of the most nota- 
ble sanitariums and pleasure resorts of Europe. 
Those who would realize something of the old-time 
gamy flavor which still attaches to it, the raci- 



MENTONE. 91 

ness of customs fast yielding to an encroaching 
civilization, and the wild grandeur and solitude 
of primeval forests, should not delay until eyery 
rock and valley swarms with tourists armed with 
note-books and umbrellas, and brandishing Cook's 
tickets in every hamlet. 

It is almost with regret that the lover of na- 
ture adds that the facilities for reaching Corsica 
are constantly increasing. It is but six hours' 
sail between Leghorn and Bastia, and numerous 
steamers ply between France, Italy, and Corsica. 



MENTONE. 



From the cliffs of Corsica one can see across 
the water the mountains which encircle the most 
noted sanitarium of southern Europe. The Gulf 
of Genoa forms a deep parabolic curve, whose 
northwestern side includes between Nice and 
Bordighera a district completely sheltered by two 
lines of mountains from the blasts of the north 
and west, which seem to have been created to 
shorten the life of man and prevent him from out- 
living the allotted span of existence, so invariably 
is he forced to fly from them and seek a shelter 
when the chronic maladies which war against 
humanity seize men within their relentless grip. 
Attacked by disease reenforced by its ally the 



92 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

north wind, the victim seeks hither and thither 
for safety, and in search of health wanders to and 
fro over the face of the earth. 

Steamship and railway companies and the 
keepers of hotels thrive as a result, and thus some 
benefit incidentally follows from the ills to which 
flesh is heir. In the course of time a system may 
be tabulated by which every invalid may find out 
exactly the spot that suits his particular malady, 
and, going at once to this agency, will be able 
by a skillful plan of exchange to arrange his af- 
fairs so that he may permanently settle in some 
noted health resort, and there conduct his busi- 
ness without disturbance, even if ten thousand 
miles away from home. Thus each may find by 
unerring data the paradise especially suited to his 
own necessities. One line of steamers may be 
advertised as bound to the cure of bronchial diffi- 
culties ; others to sanitaria for hypochondriacs ; 
others for nerve resorts, and the like. Patients 
may apply at a grand general office supplied with 
minute formulas and attended by physicians 
skilled in making correct diagnoses. All that the 
invalid will have to do will be to pack his lug- 
gage and go to this central agency. Although he 
does not yet know what resort he is to go to, he 
knows that the place is waiting for him some- 
where. Therefore he bids his friends a cheerful 
adieu, confident in the restorative qualities of the 
paradise to which he will be assigned by the con- 



MENTONE. 93 

suiting physician of the Grand Central Invalid 
Dispatch Company, Limited. 

" Yon say your troubles are of a nervous turn," 
says the consulting physician ; " you are wakeful ; 
you find that you can not dance as long as former- 
ly without subsequent irritability ; that you can 
not bear the same quantity of old port you took 
in youth ; that the crying of a baby in the middle 
of the night produces a profound irritation of the 
system ; that the persistent visits of creditors with 
bills that you can not pay cause such a disturb- 
ance as even to affect the moral nature to the 
point of using emphatic language ; that even the 
every-day sight of your wife coquetting with gay 
colonels, when she thinks you are quietly smoking 
your pipe in the corner, has become a source of 
nervous annoyance that does not yield to the sub- 
cutaneous injection of heroic doses of morphine, 
and increases the action of the heart to a degree 
alarming both to yourself and to the welfare of 
the esteemed partner of your bosom. Ahem ! My 
dear sir, I do not wish unnecessarily to alarm you; 
indeed, I see nothing in your symptoms which is 
not capable of alleviation, and probably of cure, 
if you give yourself without reserve to the rem- 
edy now well known to suit cases like yours. Be 
calm, my dear sir, for I am about to recommend 
you to a resort so charming and efficacious that I 
almost wish I could have as good an excuse as you 
have for going there myself for several years. I 



94 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

am quite sure you will agree with me that the 
quiet seclusion of Pitcairn's Island will suit your 
case to a dot. You go by the Isthmus of Panama, 
and I would most earnestly recommend you to 
give it a faithful trial, remaining there, if neces- 
sary, until all the predisposing causes are removed. 
"We doctors, you know, are so often blamed for 
imperfect cures when the blame really lies with 
the patient, who does not more than half carry 
out our advice." 

So advises the consulting physician ; and, as 
the patient moves away to purchase a through 
ticket for Pitcairn's Island, he taps the bell and 
orders the attendant to usher in the next visitor. 

In default of any such convenient system as 
the one suggested, the invalid now too often de- 
lays going to these health resorts until it is too 
late, or wanders aimlessly from one to the other, 
with little intelligent knowledge of the merits of 
any of them, hoping to stumble, before he dies, 
on some choice spot where he may haply prolong 
his days. 

Among the health paradises that are now 
most prominently enjoying the public favor, and 
are destined to hold it for ages to come, is Men- 
tone, which is the central town and health resort 
of the sanitary region on the westerly side of the 
Gulf of Genoa. Mentone is to the Mediterranean 
what Madeira is to the Atlantic, the culminating 
point where the advantages desirable in a sanita- 



MENTONE. 95 

rium are found more completely united than in any- 
other spot of the Mediterranean basin. 

Madeira owes its glorious climate to latitude 
and trade winds ; Mentone owes its rank to shel- 
ter from the winds. Its situation is exceptional, 
for it combines protection from keen winds with 
the temperature of a latitude sufficiently southerly 
to give force to the sun-rays. 

The Gulf of Genoa makes a deep concave 
curve toward the north ; it is evident that this 
would tend at once to protect the adjacent coast 
from all but a southerly exposure if a friendly 
wall could be erected a few miles back, high 
enough to ward off cold winds from west to east 
round by the north. Now, this is exactly what 
we find to be the case at the Riviera or coast un- 
der-cliff of the Gulf of Genoa. 

The Alps, like a bow, stretch from Nice to the 
Adriatic, inclosing Piedmont and Lombardy. 
Along the coast-line this great arc is subtended 
by the Apennines, skirting the Gulf of Genoa 
within a very few miles of the sea, and sometimes 
sending forth mighty spurs and buttresses which 
actually abut on the water. The narrow strip 
called the Riviera, bounded on the northwest to 
northeast side by the Apennines and on the other 
by the Mediterranean, is thus protected as if by a 
screen from the blasts of the north, and is fanned 
directly only by mild southerly sea-breezes. The 
protection afforded by these sheltering mountains 



96 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

is yet further assured by the higher chain of the 
Alps beyond, which serve to break to a degree 
the force of the tempests rushing down from the 
north. The savage, piercingly penetrating north- 
west wind of the south of France is especially to 
be dreaded by invalids. Until I had felt it in 
summer, I was unable to realize with what a ter- 
rific chill and fury the winds are capable of blow- 
ing for several days in succession over the land ; 
of course at sea there is nothing remarkable in 
such a phenomenon. But so effectually does the 
mountain-screen inclose Mentone that even the 
mistral is scarcely felt in that serene and secure 
elysium. 

In the flora of the Riviera, and particularly 
of Mentone, we are again reminded of Madeira. 
The aloe, palm, banana, lemon, oleander, and Nor- 
folk pine flourish there, and the rose-colored mass- 
es of the Bougainvillea, which so often thrill the 
heart with an astonishing luxuriance of color in 
the paradise of the Atlantic, also gladden the eye 
at Mentone. On the steep, lofty road to Genoa, 
near the picturesque old Moorish castle and vil- 
lage of Grimaldi, where the cliffs soar seven hun- 
dred feet above the sea, there is a view of the coast, 
with Mentone in the middle distance, which sug- 
gests by its lines and colors the inimitable gran- 
deur and loveliness of the prospect near Cabo 
Garjao in Madeira, looking toward Funchal. It 
must be conceded, however, that the greater ab- 



MENTONE. 97 

ruptness of the lines of the landscape of the lat- 
ter makes it the more remarkable of the two. 
On the other hand, in furnishing facilities for ex- 
cursions by carriage, the Riviera is superior to 
Madeira, although for short trips most visitors, 
especially invalids, prefer the sure-footed and 
docile donkeys of the neighborhood, tended by 
lithe, handsome girls instead of donkey-boys. 

Nice and Monaco, within a few miles of Men- 
tone, the latter only a few minutes distant by 
rail, have so long been known as fashionable re- 
sorts that to many the whole district is associated 
with gayety and pleasure, and is regarded as a 
center for gamblers and questionable characters 
rather than a sanitarium for invalids. This is true 
to a certain extent, especially with Monaco. In- 
trenched, as on a citadel, fashionable gambling 
holds sway in the rocky little peninsula on which 
Monaco is built ; while Nice, agreeable as it is, is 
yet too near the outer edge of the pale of protec- 
tion furnished by the coast mountains to be a re- 
sort for invalids so much as for wealth- and plea- 
sure-hunters. It is the little town straggling on 
one side up the talus of the mountains, and on the 
other reaching out over the sea on a promontory 
terminating in an old Genoese castle, that fur- 
nishes the invalid the finest winter retreat of the 
Mediterranean, Mentone by the sea. 

For ages the little town nestled there, scarcely 
known. The hardy peasants toiled century after 
7 



98 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

century, and with infinite patience terraced the 
steep slopes of the hills and ravines, and planted 
the groves of olive, orange, and lemon, the vine- 
yards and shade-trees, which give such beauty to 
the place and win for it the affections of all who 
make its acquaintance. In those days of the long 
ago the sturdy lords of yonder ruined castle on 
the upland cliff levied black-mail from passing pil- 
grims and merchants, and the white sails of the 
Saracen and Algerine corsairs were seen stealing 
like swallow-wings over the dreamy blue of the 
Mediterranean, which, impartial as the sunshine of 
heaven, has served to bear the good and the evil 
alike to their destinations. Although ever on the 
alert, the people could not always prevent the de- 
scents of the pirates, nor always escape the far- 
reaching clutches of the Moor, which, like the long 
tentacles of the devil-fish, stretched across the 
Mediterranean to the coast of Italy, and drew 
thence the screaming maiden, torn from her moth- 
er's arms, with streaming hair and eyes raining 
tears, to bewail her fate in the wife-market or 
behind the harem-lattice of Constantinople or Al- 
giers. 

What a world is this ! Without sorrow and 
blood, without tragedies unnumbered and unut- 
terable, where would be the romance that gilds 
the pages of history and gives such a boundless 
interest to the ever-living story of humanity ? 
Without the crimes and cruelty and hardness of 



MENTONE. 99 

men, where would be the tragic muse of Sopho- 
cles, the immortality of Shakespeare, the thrilling 
lamentations of Clarissa Harlowe, the mysterious 
agonies of Hester Prynne? Take away the iron 
rule of the feudal lords of the middle ages, the 
remorseless wars of Christian and Saracen, and 
all the other terrible deeds of the past, and Italy 
would be as tame in the great element of human 
interest as the primeval forests of America. 

What then ? Are these convulsions and 
crimes foreseen and intended by a great law that 
thus gives muscular force to the character of na- 
tions, and at the same time out of the sufferings 
of one generation affords the men of the next 
material for stimulating their sympathies, their 
imagination, and their arts ? Is all seeming evil 
only benefit in disguise ? Is all energy developed 
somewhere, somehow, some time into use for the 
race ? Are the moral forces like the physical 
forces of nature, even when most fierce and ap- 
parently uncontrollable, working upon certain 
lines of law ? Those who most vehemently deny 
the possibility of the truth of these observations 
are, however, utterly unable to prove the reverse. 
We know so little, we are surrounded by and 
move in such an impenetrable cloud of mystery, 
that no one can with any certainty assert that he 
has got at the truth of these matters. This much 
is certain, however, that even the best, the most 
pure-minded, the most tender-hearted, can not 



100 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

avoid acknowledging a deeper attraction in those 
spots in which natural and human or historical 
interest are combined. A landscape, however 
magnificent and sufficient in itself, receives yet 
another and perhaps deeper charm when invested 
with human associations, even when they are 
tinged with tragedy and crime. 

And thus we confess that the Riviera of Genoa 
is rendered yet more enchanting by the historic 
halo that glorifies it, and that as we ride among 
the steep, winding lanes round about Mentone, 
the gentle stimulus ever afforded to the imagina- 
tion by the traces of the men of other days, adds 
to the transports with which the cultivated mind 
gazes on the glorious prospects revealed at every 
turn. 

And thus the ages came and went. War's 
wild tempest swept over Europe, empires arose 
and fell, and Mentone, at the foot of the moun- 
tains, by its own little sheltered bay, with its own 
tragedies and festal days, its own funerals and 
marriage bells, lay there by the sea, unknown 
to the world at large. But its destiny, though 
long in coming, was yet no less sure ; and it 
came. 

I well remember the delight I experienced 
when I first read in college Ruffini's beautiful 
romance entitled "Dr. Antonio." His glowing, 
enthusiastic descriptions of the Riviera first at- 
tracted my attention to a spot which in a few 



MENTONE. 101 

years was destined to become yet more famous as 
one of the two choicest sanitariums yet discovered 
for invalids. It is to Dr. Bennett, an able Eng- 
lish physician, who was himself in search of a 
spot suited to his own complaint and easily acces- 
sible by land, that the world is indebted for the 
discovery of the advantages offered to invalids by 
Mentone. 

We now know, as so many have proved, that 
invalids who seek both a mild and a dry temper- 
ature can find it at Mentone. A moist heat, as 
every one knows, is debilitating rather than bene- 
ficial. In houses with a southern exposure the 
glass rarely falls below 56° at this enchanting 
spot, and thus one can sleep with open windows 
and be ever sure of pure oxygen. At Mentone 
the mortality from consumption in cases of inva- 
lids is scarcely one in fifty-five ; in England it is 
one in five, and in Massachusetts one in three. 

San Remo, a few miles eastward from Men- 
tone, is also becoming a climatic resort, having 
gained popularity in this respect within a few 
years. Similar in climate, it is possibly less pic- 
turesque, but it is well provided with good ac- 
commodations for invalids, and is only four miles 
from Bordighera ; it is the scene of K-uffini's ro- 
mantic novel, " Dr. Antonio," and is also noted 
for the finest palm-grove in Europe. Indeed, it 
is doubtful whether this tropical plant could grow 
elsewhere on the Continent as it does in the Rivi- 



102 THE WORLD'S PARADISES 

era. It is to those groves that the Papacy has 
long looked for palm-branches to celebrate Palm 
Sunday in Rome. 

It should be added that it is hardly expedient 
for invalids to pass the summer at Mentone. The 
season for them is really between October and 
May ; after that the invalid can receive more 
benefit by going to the Channel Islands or the Val- 
ley of Orotava. 



THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. 

Moving westward from the Riviera of Genoa, 
ever searching for that variety which is said 
by philosophers to be the condiment of life, the 
wanderer in search of health and happiness 
finds in the South of France a land which 
pleases the eye and the fancy alike, seduces the 
senses and invigorates the intellect. Here, be- 
tween the Gulf of Lyons and the Bay of Bis- 
cay, are two paradises divided by the sere waste 
lands of the Corbieres : the paradise of Provence, 
of which Avignon is the center, watered by the 
Rhone and dominated by the grand and lovely 
peak of Mont Ventoux, and the paradise of the 
Pyrenees, of which Pau is the center, guarded 
by the awful Pic du Midi. I know of no part 
of Europe where a lovely scenery and a delight- 
ful climate have been more effectively aided by a 



THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. 103 

wealth of historic antiquities and the indescribable 
charm of great historic associations, except Atti- 
ca ; and there we do not so much find a luxuri- 
ance of vegetation as a suggestive and glorious 
combination of tone and color. 

Avignon, on the banks of the Rhone, is girt 
by a coronal of mediaeval towers united by the 
battlements of picturesque walls. These fortifica- 
tions give us one of the finest illustrations now 
existing of the strong- walled towns of the middle 
ages ; they completely surround the city, and have 
been thoroughly restored by the celebrated archi- 
tect Viollet Le Due. In the heart of the city 
stands the enormous palace of the Popes, who, it 
will be remembered, reigned at Avignon during 
the fourteenth century. The vast towers which sur- 
mounted this edifice have been shorn away by 
modern vandalism, but the main structure still re- 
mains, one of the grandest and most sumptuous 
monuments of the gay, turbulent, romantic period 
which it commemorates. Those were indeed days 
of festivity and of blood — the troubadour sigh- 
ing under his lady-love's window his nightingale 
song, while in the neighboring dungeon the rack 
of the Inquisition tore apart the muscles of its 
victim. In his banqueting hall the Pope drank 
deep out of his golden beaker, while in the cell 
underground Rienzi, the noblest man of his age, 
shut out from the sunlight and the stars, felt the 
chains gnaw at his bones. 



104 THE WORLD'S PARADISE.-. 

The exterior of this palace is of a most grim 
and tremendous aspect, and the effect is not less- 
ened by the machicolations or apertures under the 
overhanging ramparts through which in time of 
war the besieged poured boiling pitch and melted 
lead upon the heads of the assaulting columns be- 
low. 

On entering the building we are therefore not 
surprised to find long, winding, and gloomy stair- 
ways and corridors inclosed by walls of enormous 
massiveness, that strike awe to the heart, as if 
they led to some mysterious halls of oblivion, as 
in some cases they do. The oubliettes of this 
fortress palace are actually two stories below the 
foundation, where the rays of the sun have never 
penetrated. But after visiting them it is a strik- 
ing contrast to ascend to the halls where the Pope 
and his vast retinue of servitors dwelt in the ut- 
most magnificence of which the middle ages were 
capable. 

Of late years the building has been occu- 
pied as a barrack, and the gilded frescoes of the 
vaulted ceilings have been whitewashed in a 
most ruthless manner. Nevertheless, one can par- 
tially discern in the carved stonework what must 
have been the splendor of the Pope's audience 
chamber in the days when Petrarch and Laura 
passed through those halls, and Rienzi made his 
appeal to John XXII. But, when I was there, 
a company of infantry was quartered in this very 



THE SOUTH OF FKANCE. 105 

apartment. When we reached the center of the 
room the garrulous JProvenpale, who was showing 
me around the building, stopped to give me an 
elaborate account of the palace. Some of the sol- 
diers who were cleaning their arms clustered 
around us to listen to the conversation. Sudden- 
ly, with a quick jerk of the head, she said to me, 
" What are you ? Are you an Englishman ? " 

" No," said I. 

"Well, then, you are not a Frenchman, are 



you 



9" 



" ~No, I'm not a Frenchman." 

" Well," and she looked at me almost fiercely, 
while the soldiers stepped closer as if keenly in- 
terested in my reply, "it can't be possible that 
you are a German ? " 

" Well, and what if I am ? " I replied, looking 
at her with simulated defiance. A moment of 
breathless silence succeeded, and then I said qui- 
etly, " But I am not a German. I am an Ameri- 
can." 

" Ah, that is much better," the woman ex- 
claimed, while they all gave such a sigh of evident 
relief that I was tempted to laugh in their faces. 

A few steps from the palace of the popes is 
the Cathedral of Notre Dame, an unpretending 
Romanesque structure overlooking the city. The 
portico is an elegant specimen of early Christian 
architecture ; the interior is simple, massive, and 
entirely devoid of all signs of Gothic styles. To 



106 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

the student of archaeology it is a very interesting 
building, but to the poet or sentimentalist it offers 
especial attractions as the church of Petrarch and 
Laura. In one of the chapels is the exquisitely 
beautiful tomb of John XXII. The types of 
Provencal beauty which one meets among the 
worshipers serve at once to warm the fancy and 
to carry one back to the olden days of romance 
and song. 

One hot noontime I sought shelter in the cool 
aisles of the cathedral. Passing as I did from 
glare to gloom, my vision was at first confused, 
and I supposed that I was alone in the building ; 
but as I became accustomed to the twilight, I per- 
ceived an elderly woman approaching me, accom- 
panied by a young girl. I accosted them, and 
inquired for the sacristan, but scarcely heeded 
their reply, I was so astonished by the picture be- 
fore me. The maiden, with her hands crossed on 
her breast, her eyes uplifted, and her lips still vi- 
brating as if with the prayers she had scarcely 
finished repeating, and an almost seraphic ecstasy 
in her pure and innocent features, appeared ex- 
actly as if she were one of Fra Angelico's angels 
stepped out of the canvas. It was one of those 
bits of real life that one meets at long inter- 
vals, which seem invested with the garb of the 
ideal. 

But I saw another scene that evening which 
brought me back to the hard realities of life be- 



THE SOUTH OF FKANCE. 107 

low. Crossing the Rhone on the suspension bridge 
toward sunset, I stationed myself where I could 
see on the one hand the ever-shifting and passing 
train of peasantry, some returning to the villages 
from market, and others going back to town after 
a hard day in the fields. The towers beyond car- 
ried the mind back to other days, but the men 
and women that I saw were bending and reeking 
with the toil of the nineteenth century. The 
prose and the poetry of life were there, but they 
did not seem to be in full accord ; therefore I turned 
and gazed restfully on the faint purple outline 
of Mont Ventoux, delicately penciled against the 
opalescent tints of the sky like the shadow of a vast 
pyramid. In the foreground rushed the blue ar- 
rowy current of the Rhone, on the one bank the 
city, on the other the old castellated suburb of 
Ville-Neuve-les-Avignon ; between the two the 
broken remains of the bridge of St. Benezet, said 
to have been constructed by a pious youth of that 
name in the dark ages, who was most likely a 
clever young architect, sainted after he acquired 
reputation. While I was thus gazing alternately 
at scenery and people, a care-worn, middle-aged 
man in a blouse came down to the bank of the 
river and laid aside his habit ; then, before any 
one could divine his purpose, he jumped into the 
rushing river, which was shooting by like a mill- 
race. There was no boat within half a mile of 
the spot. To try to save him by jumping in after 



108 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

him would be to court his fate. The whirlpools 
carried him to the center of the stream ; a few 
short moments he floated, and then sank out of 
sight. 

That was enough of tragedy for one day. 
Recrossing the bridge and threading the narrow 
lanes of Avignon, I climbed to the public garden 
behind the cathedral, lit my cigarette, and called 
for coffee ; but I enjoyed them not on that even- 
ing with the repose of mind which they are ex- 
pected to impart. 

The precipitous rock which rises abruptly be- 
hind the city above the Rhone has been laid out 
in a promenade, that commands a vast prospect 
over the affluent beauty of Provence. In the 
north Mont Ventoux looms majestically against the 
sky, above an undulating plain well watered, dot- 
ted with towns, villas, and ruined feudal towers — 
a landscape of extraordinary magnificence. Around 
the foot of the precipice rushes the deep but rapid 
current of the Rhone. 

An attendant brings us coffee and tobacco, 
and in the shadow of softly moaning pines we 
listen to the chiming of the bells from the city 
below, until the rapt fancy bears us away from 
the present into those ages when Roman and 
Gaul, Saracen and Crusader, knight and trouba- 
dour, alternately moved over yonder plains, alter- 
nately held sway, and passed away. If Provence 
has a fault in her charms, it is that the historic 



THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. 109 

element, the associations of human interest, are so 
great as well-nigh to overpower the influence of 
nature, and thus prevent the scenery and the life 
of to-day from exerting over the senses that all- 
sufticient interest which should be the main at- 
traction of a paradise where we seek peace for 
the mind and soothing influences for the senses. 

In the paradise of Beam this element less 
occupies our attention. It is true that the remi- 
niscences of chivalry are everywhere about us, 
while the chateau of the house of Navarre at Pau 
constantly recalls the romantic life and character 
of that gaillard and well-beloved king, Henri IV., 
for there he was born and reared ; his cradle is 
shown there to this day ; and some of the most 
sumptuous halls of the middle ages, replete with 
stories of romance and tragedy, are within that 
most interesting palace of olden time. But, after 
all, Nature asserts herself here, and is the ever- 
present attraction, to which she adds a most se- 
ductive climate, that renders this a health resort 
for the invalid when other lands are frozen or 
thrashed with sleet and rain. Thermal springs 
possessing various healing qualities also abound, 
and they must indeed be forlorn who can not find 
in Beam health, solace, and repose. I was at first 
at a loss to account for the different force of the 
influence of nature in Provence and Bearn, since 
the scenery of each seems equally lovely. But 
I came at last to think that it is the mountains 



110 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

which give such a predominating power to nature 
in the latter region. A grand range of mountains 
is like an individual of decided character ; it dar- 
ingly asserts itself, and allows no other feature of 
the scenery to take from it the ascendancy. Thus 
the stupendous peaks and gorges of the Pyrenees 
are present in every Bearnese landscape, now ad- 
vancing with mighty shoulders into the verdure 
of the plains, and anon retiring to the end of a 
long winding valley, whose idyllic beauty is musi- 
cal with the prattle of streams. And, however 
savage the serrated outline of the Pyrenees, and 
however stern they are when we penetrate to their 
inmost recesses, their general aspect on the north- 
ern face is cheerful ; for they are clad with for- 
ests and seem to catch something of the joyous 
character of the Bearnese themselves, while not 
altogether relaxing from the character they feel 
bound to assume as large mountains. In mid- 
winter, whitened with deep snows, their appear- 
ance is Alpine. 

Who that has sat and dreamed under the grand 
colonnades of trees on the esplanade of Pau can 
ever forget that magnificent scene ? The old city's 
peaked and mossy roofs cluster one above another 
on a steep declivity overlooking a vast plain, whose 
ample verdure is intersected by the foaming waters 
of the Gave d'Ossau ; and the picture is inclosed 
by the purple ranges of the Pyrenees, above 
whose center, in a cleft of the mountains, rises 



THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. HI 

the sublime obelisk of the Pic du Midi, regular 
as if sculptured by the giants of primeval ages. 

At that distance the Pyrenees look like a wall, 
scarcely suggesting the depth of their ravines and 
valleys. But if you take a coach and ride toward 
the Pic du Midi up the Yal d'Ossau, you shall 
traverse nearly twenty-five miles before you even 
begin to ascend the mountains. Of all the ex- 
quisite valleys of the Pyrenees, not even excepting 
the charming vale of Lourdes, none seems to me 
to exceed this Val d'Ossau for poetic loveliness. 
Everywhere, a silver serpent stealing among the 
vineyards and orchards, now silent and anon chat- 
tering blithe music, the Gave glides across the 
roadway. Meadows lush with harvests and 
flowers, and picturesque with vine-hung poplars 
or willows, stretch away to the green precipices 
which on either hand inclose this enchanted val- 
ley. The song of the peasant falls pleasantly on 
the quietude of the summer's day. At intervals 
of three or four miles we come to hamlets by the 
river-side, where, of course, the postilion must 
have his chat with Marguerite or Ninon while 
they are changing the horses, and doubtless wins 
at least a glass of eau-de-vie if not a stolen kiss 
or two. There is an epicurean atmosphere about 
everything, that makes one look leniently and per- 
haps enviously at the varlet, who, having mounted 
the box, now cracks his long lash in a scientific 
and artistic style that produces the double result 



112 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

of starting the four horses away at a tearing 
gallop and filling the bystanders of both sexes 
with admiration and delight. It is not until we 
arrive at Laruns, a most entertaining and pictu- 
resque hamlet, that we fairly reach the heart of 
the Pyrenees, and begin to storm the stupendous 
bastions that loom above us far up in the clouds, 
sublime and terrible as if begotten by the glacier 
and the thunderbolt. 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 

It is not a long journey from Pau to Portugal. 
Of all the travelers who visit the continent for 
health or pleasure, how few ever go to Portugal, 
and thus how few know that it is the most beauti- 
ful country in Europe. I am aware of no region 
on the mainland that, within so limited a space, 
offers such a variety of scenery. In the south is 
a parched region, for all the world like a bit of 
the opposite coast of Barbary, of which it very 
likely formed a part at some remote period. Ad- 
joining this is a district of plain that would be 
monotonous if it were not everywhere carpeted 
with a profusion of rank vegetation, so rich and 
varied in color as to suggest an elaborate pattern 
of Persian embroidery. Lisbon itself possesses 
a port and bay scarcely inferior in beauty to Na- 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 113 

pies ; and the neighboring heights and town of 
Cintra combine in a most enchanting and extraor- 
dinary manner the charms of sea and precipice, 
palace and garden. 

The central portions of Portugal are in turn 
savagely romantic and mountainous, haunted by 
the boar and the wolf ; while the delights of the 
scenery of Coimbra and the Mondego, and the 
legends which cling to their feudal walls, fasci- 
nate the cultivated imagination. But, as if this 
were not enough, this choice little kingdom offers 
us yet greater attractions. When you have sated 
your appetite on the rest of Portugal, then go to 
Oporto, and from the tremendous gorges of the 
Douro enter the paradise of the Minho e Douro, 
a province small in size, but exceeding in beauty 
any spot I have seen in Europe. First tarry a 
few days at Oporto, for it is gloriously situated, 
and is the great shipping center of the port wine 
trade. 

Port wine, par excellence, is all made in the 
district of the Alto Douro, in the southern part of 
the province of Tras os Montes, along the banks of 
the Douro, down which the wine is eventually 
brought in boats to Oporto. The average yield 
is fifty thousand pipes, of which thirty-five thou- 
sand are exported to England, and the business is 
entirely controlled by the English. Old port, in 
Oporto, is something similar to nectar of the gods ; 
few are the privileged mortals who ever taste any- 
8 



114 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

thing equal to it beyond the confines of Portugal. 
To be really worth drinking, it must mellow at 
least ten or twelve years in the dark lodges or 
vaults at Gaia, opposite Oporto, where immense 
quantities of this "liquid sunshine" are stored. 
As it grows old, it assumes a tint suggesting alter- 
nately ruby and molten gold, as the light happens 
to strike it. 

The situation of Oporto is superb, at the open- 
ing of a gorge, on an excessively steep acclivity, 
and so divided by a ravine as to offer some very 
effective massing of light and shade, together 
with delicate tints at sunrise and sunset. There 
is a lack of spires in the outline, but the want is 
partially obviated by the magnificent tower of the 
Eggrego dos Clerigos, on the highest point of the 
southern portion of the city, sustaining its gilded 
cross nearly six hundred feet above the river. On 
the abrupt, pinnacle-like hill at the northern end 
of the city the towers of the cathedral and the 
bishop's palace, although in themselves not re- 
markable, contribute by their position to that 
general effect which makes Oporto from a dis- 
tance one of the finest cities in Europe. 

Many of the streets are wide, although very 
steep, and the houses well built, and exceedingly 
neat, with their facing of azulejos or glazed figured 
tiles. The people are generally spirited and good- 
looking, but inclined to express discontent by re- 
volts. Strangers will be struck with the elegant 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 115 

equipages common here as well as at Lisbon, and 
with the reckless speed with which they are driven 
down the steepest slopes. Another feature pecu- 
liar to Oporto, and worthy of imitation elsewhere, 
is the place where fresh milk is sold. It is a neat 
stable, into which the cows are driven each morn- 
ing. In front is a counter, and when a customer 
requires a quart of milk it is drawn before his 
eyes ; adulteration is thus impossible, while the 
condition of the cow shows that the quality of 
the milk must also be pure. 

At Oporto I took the diligence for Braga and 
a trip through portions of the Minho district, 
which has the reputation of offering some of the 
most beautiful landscapes in Europe. I was not 
disappointed in what I saw. The diligence started 
at nine, and was drawn by six horses, three abreast, 
the common mode of harnessing horses in Portu- 
gal. As usual, the luggage and a number of the 
passengers were on the top. We started at full 
gallop, going at a rapid rate up the long slope 
leading out of the city. Crossing the Leco, we 
came to Yilianova, changed horses, and reached 
Braga toward night. The country increased in 
beauty with each mile, giving everywhere evi- 
dence of high culture. Vines were trained on 
trees as well as on trellises, adding luxuriance to 
the verdure ; the villages were always neat and 
thrifty, and new houses were going up every- 
where in the Minho, sufficient proof of the grow- 



116 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

ing prosperity of the country. The landscape 
was very broken and the road was rarely level, 
sometimes winding up a long, steep ascent. Moun- 
tain-ranges were to be seen on every side. 

Braga lies on a hill in the center of a noble 
valley ; its battlements and towers were visible 
a long distance, through embowering foliage, be- 
fore we finally dashed up its narrow streets at 
a furious rate, amid a lively tarantara from the 
bugle of the postilion and a continuous volley 
from the long whip of our coachman. Every 
diligence-driver in Portugal carries two whips, 
a short one for the wheel-horses, a heavy and 
fearful weapon, and a long lash for the leaders, 
which the driver cracks in a manner that may be 
ranked among the fine arts. 

Braga is a city of great antiquity, numbering 
sixteen thousand inhabitants. It was founded by 
the Romans in 296 b. c. ; afterward it became the 
capital of the Suevi, and later an important place 
in the early history of Portugal. The Archbishop 
of Braga disputes the primacy of the Spains with 
the Archbishop of Toledo, and the claim is indi- 
cated by a cross with triple bars wherever a cross 
can be planted, besides weather-vanes on every 
spire, representing cherubs holding miters, keys, 
crosiers, and the like ; but, as most of them have 
lost their gilding and are black with rust, they 
as often look like imps as like angels. 

The cathedral has a beautiful flamboyant porch 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 117 

with triple arch, and the exterior of the choir or 
apse is also highly ornate and elegant ; but the 
interior has been improved and restored out of all 
character with the original. Braga is full of choice 
bits of antiquity — here an old tower, and there a 
mullioned window or quaint chapel. But the glory 
of the place is in its situation. One may allow his 
steps to wander at random in any direction, and 
he will always discover some beautiful prospect 
or idyllic nook. The chapel of St. John, in a vale 
near a brook spanned by two arched bridges close 
at hand, shaded by lime and cork trees, and musi- 
cal with the singing of nightingales, or of girls 
washing their clothes, is a lovely spot morn- 
ing and evening. Nostra Senhora de Guada- 
lupe is situated in the midst of an inclosure 
on a knoll shaded by olive and cypress trees and 
stone-pines. The view in every direction is en- 
chanting. 

Two miles from Braga, on the summit of an 
eminence some eight hundred feet above the plain, 
is the church of Bom Jesus, one of the most beau- 
tiful and curious resorts in the kingdom. It is a 
pilgrimage shrine, and is reached by an excellent 
zigzag road densely shaded. But the devout 
pilgrim will prefer to climb the steep ascent by 
the elaborate stairway that leads directly to the 
sacred spot, and is provided at the landings with 
chapels. These chapels are sixteen in number, 
square, with conical roof, and have a grating 



118 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

through which is visible in each a group of life- 
size figures representing some scene from the life 
of the Saviour. These groups are colored, and are 
in some cases not without merit. Near the sum- 
mit, the hill on each side of the stairway is most 
elaborately terraced, and planted with flowers and 
cedars. The terrace expands to a semicircular 
platform before the church, and is surrounded by 
marble statues of the more noted characters who 
took part in the world's great tragedy. The 
church is of considerable size, and has little pre- 
tension to beauty, but is, on the other hand, free 
from the vulgar tinsel-work which cheapens so 
many Roman Catholic churches in Portugal and 
Southern Europe. 

The prospect from this terrace is one of the 
most remarkable in Portugal, at once lovely and 
sublime, commanding the silver line of the ocean, 
the verdure and the glory of the Minho valleys, 
and the grandeur of the sharply formed, purple- 
hued pinnacles of the Gerez. Under the lime 
and plane trees adjoining is the place where 
pilgrims bake their bread in rude ovens in the 
open air. The hotel of Boa Vista, the best I 
met outside of the capital, is a stone's throw from 
the church. This spot affords many pleasing walks, 
and may be recommended to tourists or invalids 
as well as to pilgrims. I like the idea of the place 
better than that of most religious resorts, because 
no saint, mythical or otherwise, is obtruded ; the 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 119 

shrine is dedicated to the founder of the Christian 
religion, and to him alone. 

Having arrived at Braga, one is so well satis- 
fied that he wants to stay arrived. He finds it is 
not necessary to go to the "hollow Lotus land" in 
order to eat lotus ; it can be done at Braga. Not 
because the accommodations offered the traveler 
at the inn are sumptuous, for they are rather the 
reverse. Out of Lisbon, the traveler in Portugal, 
with a few exceptions, will find little to praise in 
the inns of the country. But in such a climate 
one lives out of doors and basks under the pines, 
and thus thinks less of the quality of the hotels. 
Then, too, the people are so generally cheerful and 
polite that one soon feels at ease with them. The 
Portuguese are a galliard and hospitable folk, af- 
fable, good-hearted, and generally mild-tempered. 
But they are none the less high-spirited on that 
account, and may not be trifled with any more 
than other people. 

The 1st of December is always celebrated 
with immense enthusiasm : it is the anniversary 
of the day when the people, in 1640, arose and 
overthrew the tyranny of the Spanish dominion 
usurped by Philip II. after the death of Dom Se- 
bastian at the battle of Alcazarquivir. There is 
no love wasted between the two peoples : the Por- 
tuguese can not forget the Spanish yoke, while 
the Spaniards can not forget that, from the famous 
battle of Aljubarrotta down to the war of inde- 



120 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

pendence, the Portuguese have beaten them in al- 
most every battle, and once carried their standard 
into Madrid itself. It is a mistake, also, to sup- 
pose that the Portuguese language is so very in- 
ferior to the Spanish : this is, to say the least, as 
yet an open question. The Portuguese has many 
delicate modes of expressing shades of thought 
quite peculiar to itself, and is in construction more 
nearly like the ancient Latin than any of the cog- 
nate tongues. The orthography is, however, not 
yet quite settled ; the same word, and that, per- 
haps, a proper noun, may be spelled in different 
ways. Nearly one thousand Moorish or Arabic 
words are in constant use. 

Nor are these the only signs of the former 
Saracenic dominion in Lusitania. The cuisine is 
quite Oriental : a dish of rice resembling pilaff is 
invariably the second course at dinner. The peo- 
ple have an Eastern relish for sweets, and excel- 
lent preserves are common when everything else, 
perhaps, is barely eatable. The coffee is gener- 
ally good ; the tea, of which the Portuguese are 
very fond, is always good. The clapping of hands 
in lieu of the ringing of a bell is quite Oriental. 
It is by no means uncommon to meet men of re- 
markable personal beauty who are of unquestion- 
able Morisco descent. The politeness of the Por- 
tuguese seems also borrowed in part from the Ori- 
ental, although it so often springs apparently from 
kindliness of nature that I am inclined to consider 



NOKTH OF PORTUGAL. 121 

it an original trait of the Portuguese character. 
No people I have met have struck me as so unaf- 
fectedly polite, so full of unselfish courtesy in the 
ordinary dealings of life, so gracious and hospi- 
table, as the Portuguese. This politeness extends 
from the lowest to the highest, and pervades the 
whole nation. 

As regards other social traits, it may be said 
that the Portuguese lose nothing in comparison 
with other Latin races on the score of modesty 
and morals. There are certain Saxon notions of 
propriety which do not enter into Latin minds, 
and therefore should not be expected of them. 
The Portuguese are warm-hearted, and there seems 
to be considerable domestic unity and affection 
among them. Marriage is rather more the result 
of love than the mere matter of business or con- 
venance that it is too often in France and Italy. 
It is a noteworthy fact that the Portuguese women 
are inferior to the men in physical beauty. The 
difference is more marked in the upper than in the 
lower classes ; perhaps the type, dark and semi- 
Oriental, requires the picturesque costume of the 
peasantry to do it the justice which it certainly 
does not receive from the fashions of Paris. 

The masculine sex of the little kingdom dis- 
plays a truly feminine weakness for dress. To 
cut a figure on the pracca of an evening in panta- 
loons that set off to the best advantage the nether 
limbs of the wearer, and to move and pose the 



122 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

person with studied effect, are apparently the chief 
end of being to the young coxcombs of Lisbon 
and Oporto. The gold lace sported by every one 
who can possibly find an excuse to put on a uni- 
form would almost pay the national revenue. 
However, this little foible is set off by the skill 
shown in managing the superb steeds which often 
grace the esplanade. The Portuguese also make 
good sailors — the best of all the Latin races, as the 
writer can testify from personal observation. 

It is a morning's ride from Braga to Ponte da 
Lima. This is reputed by the Portuguese to be 
the finest view in the kingdom, which is saying a 
great deal for it. After hearing that, although 
very well content with Braga, I was of course 
bound to see Ponte da Lima. My coachman 
looked like a rogue, and, from certain suspicious 
stories he told about himself with much zest, 
I am inclined to think that he was several re- 
moves from saintship. But the worst quality he 
displayed during the ride was an endless capacity 
for chattering, for which I blamed him ; to which 
he added a propensity to joke with the pretty 
peasant girls, for which I blamed him less. 

Crossing a low, sere ridge which divided the 
plain, whose beauty was so continuous as almost to 
be monotonous, the valley of the river Lima sud- 
denly unfolded itself to view. Following a gentle 
descent, we reached the town by the side of the 
river. It is more difficult to describe a serene 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 123 

and quiet beauty than one that is strongly marked 
and forces itself at once on our enthusiasm. It is 
easier to paint the portrait of a rough soldier than 
of a fair woman, and do it well. I can only men- 
tion what seemed the characteristic features of so 
celebrated a view, and leave you to imagine the 
rest. In my memory it dwells as one of the few 
absolutely perfect and satisfying landscapes I 
have seen. 

There is a little town on a slope dropping to 
the banks of a river. Every house is draped with 
ivy, and a cluster of feudal towers by the brink is 
almost hidden by the velvety green of the ivy that 
festoons their gray masonry. A little market- 
place near the water, and a wain creaking along the 
pier, give just sufficient animation to prevent the 
place from seeming wholly given over to slumber. 
A long reddish-gray bridge, supported by twenty- 
four Gothic arches, and venerable with half a 
thousand years, spans the Lima, and on the north- 
ern bank meets a group of villas, where the merry 
country girls come down and wash their linen, like 
Nausicaa when met by Ulysses. The gardens 
which overhang the water are closed in by a deli- 
cately outlined amphitheatre of mountains, mir- 
rored in the still surface of the silent gliding 
river. 

The Lima was reputed by some to be the Lethe 
of mythology, for which reason Lucius Brutus had 
great difficulty in persuading his army to cross. 



124 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

Many Portuguese poets have celebrated the charms 
of the Lima. Indeed, this spot is considered the 
most beautiful in Portugal. As my expectations 
were great, the quiet character of the landscape 
at first failed wholly to realize my anticipations. 
There is nothing about it to make a vivid impres- 
sion at a glance. But the longer I gazed, the more 
my rapture grew, until I was able to see that it is 
not on anyone feature that Ponte da Lima depends 
for the subtle influence it weaves over the soul, 
but on a happy combination of light and color, 
mountain, grove, and river, hoary bridge and ivied 
battlement, in a harmonious whole. As one looks 
from the bridge, on either side a picture is pre- 
sented so calm, so beautiful, so majestic, so satis- 
fying, that it seems impossible for the highest art 
to add to the felicitous arrangement. 

I returned to Braga by way of Ponte Novo 
and Palmiera. The vendas or wayside pot-houses, 
and the estalagems or inns, are always known by 
a bush hung over the door in the Minho e Douro, 
and generally through Portugal ; hence the prov- 
erb, " Good wine needs no bush." The road was 
often blocked with ox-carts of the most primitive 
character, consisting of two solid wheels and a 
round axle, the whole turning ; the cart rests in a 
groove on the axle, and is kept in place merely by 
its own weight. Nothing simpler could be de- 
vised. The cart is drawn by a band of hide at- 
tached to the horns of the oxen, sometimes to their 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 125 

foreheads. The yoke, which plays quite a subor- 
dinate part, is often over a foot broad, of oak 
elaborately carved, and hung with tassels. Some 
of these yokes are very old, dating even four cen- 
turies back. The enormous horns of the oxen give 
a very picturesque effect to one of these rustic 
turn-outs, although nothing quite so foolish ever 
was seen as the expression of young bullocks with 
their prodigious appendages. The carts of Por- 
tugal are gifted with an almost incredible power 
of sound. This is kept in view in their construc- 
tion. The sound is alternately a squeak and a 
groan long drawn out, and so loud that it may be 
heard nearly a mile on a quiet day. The chorus 
from a train of carts is deafening. The noise was 
devised, it is said, to frighten away the wolves, 
which are still abundant in the mountains. It is 
certainly hideous enough to accomplish the de- 
sired end, and would doubtless fill a legion of 
demons with unqualified dismay. 

Four coaches started out of Braga at 6 a. m. 
sharp for Guimaraens, from the street of San 
Marcos, which, by the way, is quaint enough with 
its projecting stories and balconies, gaudy colors, 
and trumpet-like spouts. We went at a gallop 
much of the way, the drivers endeavoring to pass 
each other, although we had to climb and descend 
the Falaperra range. A sharp angle in the road 
suddenly disclosed Guimaraens, embosomed in 
foliage, on a gentle slope in a hollow of the moun- 



126 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

tains, and crowned by a mediaeval castle. This 
place was the first capital of Portugal. Alfonso 
Henrique was born here, and built the castle, which 
is scarcely injured by " Time's effacing fingers." 
The stately keep, the pointed battlements com- 
mon in the fortresses of the country — all are there 
as of old. 

The palace first occupied by the sovereigns 
of Portugal is close to the castle — a quadran- 
gle in good preservation, in three sides of which 
troops are quartered. The streets of Guimaraens 
were the most quaint and picturesque I saw in 
Portugal — narrow, with projecting eaves and bal- 
conies, and marvelous water-spouts of many fan- 
tastic forms. 

Having " done " Guimaraens, I took an out- 
side passage for Oporto, via Santo Thyrso, one of 
the most charming and delicious little rural towns 
imaginable. It haunts the memory like an ode 
of Keats, and, from the summit of the moun- 
tain which the road passes over a few miles be- 
yond, a third of Portugal may be seen. The 
Minho and the Beira districts lie spread out as on 
a map, bounded by the Atlantic. In the extreme 
north rises Gaviarra or Outiro Major, the highest 
mountain in the kingdom, soaring eight thousand 
feet ; in the south the rugged range of the Es- 
trella, which is nearly as lofty. 

As we approached Oporto toward night, the 
road was thronged with peasants returning home 



NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 127 

from market in holiday attire ; the women in 
black felt hats over a red or blue handkerchief, 
often with a load on the head, and with massive 
earrings and breastpins — one might almost call 
them breastplates — of the yellow filigree gold for 
which Oporto is famous ; the men with red sashes, 
and thrumming a guitar. The coachman, a gal- 
liard blade, was able to guide his long team 
through the mingled masses of carts, unruly bul- 
locks, unmanageable kids and pigs, and sparking 
swains and lasses, and at the same time find leisure 
to wind his whip within half a hair of the eyes 
of some gaping urchin, or drop a bit of honeyed 
flattery into the ear of some giggling damsel, or 
fling jokes or epithets, sometimes of the broadest 
character, at this or that swaggering gallant. 

On reaching the barrier, our baggage was ex- 
amined, the invariable rule in Portugal. The con- 
tents of the tin chest of one of our passengers ex- 
cited considerable mirth. An orange, a pair of slip- 
pers, a night-cap, and a brandy-bottle only served 
to display the emptiness of a large trunk. As he 
was "a lean and slippered pantaloon," with red 
nose and eyes, who had been drinking all the way, 
the empty bottle evoked almost as much laughter 
as if it had been full. 



128 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 



THE AZORES. 

We have tarried long enough on the main- 
land ; once more let us breathe the rime of the 
salt sea, and behold gray cliffs and peaks looming 
above the distant waves. The mariners of old, 
sailing southward and westward, sought para- 
dises in unknown isles, and often fancied they saw 
enchanted groves and towers quivering in the of- 
fing. Where they looked and found not, we find ; 
what they hoped for, we realize. And, if Atlan- 
tis and the Isle of the Seven Cities are myths, we 
know of islands not less fair and more easily 
reached than those. 

One hundred and ten miles at sea, if you look 
sharply at sunrise, you can sometimes descry a 
faint blue point that seems to dance above the 
waves as the ship rises and falls on the heave of 
the sea ; that is the extreme summit of the mag- 
nificent volcanic peak of the Azores. With a fair 
wind we rapidly lift the gray cone above the cir- 
cle of clouds which plays around its base, and 
then we discover at its feet the magical isle of 
Fayal. 

" Stand by to clew up the royals ! " cries the 
captain as we round-to between the two islands, 
which are only four miles apart, and drop anchor 
in the port of Horta, the chief town of Fayal. Horta 
is a small place of only five thousand inhabitants ; 



THE AZORES. 129 

but to the simple people of the Azores it seems so 
large and important that I remember of a young 
girl who went from Mores to Fayal, and thence 
to Boston, who would not come on deck when 
summoned by one of her companions to look on 
the splendor of the metropolis of New England 
as they were sailing up the harbor, because, as she 
said, she had already seen Horta, and she knew 
there could be nothing else so fine in the world. 

Invalids go to Fayal during the spring and 
summer to recuperate their failing energies. They 
do well ; it is a choice little island, and, without 
carrying one's affections by storm, its genial and 
healthful air and the growing attractions of its 
scenery gain a permanent place in our memories 
of pleasant lands. The sleepy quiet of the streets 
and the undertone of the surf beating for ever- 
more on the beach soothe the nerves like an ano- 
dyne. A visit to the shady market-place in the 
morning before breakfast, a stroll to the seaside 
in the afternoon to see the merry-eyed peasants 
embark on their swift feluccas to return to Pico, 
now and then a ride on a lazy donkey followed 
by a garrulous boy, will half make one think he 
is leading an active life in Fayal ; and when the 
sun, approaching the western ocean, suffuses the 
summit of the majestic cone of Pico's noble 
mountain with purple fire, until the lava point 
seems to burn like a living coal, aud kindles the 
vapor-like clouds floating above it with rosy fires, 



130 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

then one is thrown into a reverent mood, and can 
easily imagine that he is gazing on a vast altar 
whereon sacrifices are burning to the God of the 
universe. 

But when Pico overpowers by the sublimity of 
its mien, we can turn with delightful content to 
the bananas and orange-groves, the fig-trees and 
vines, and the superb masses of oleanders, gerani- 
ums, camellias, and hortensias, which lend illimita- 
ble beauty to the valley and the river of the Fla- 
mengoz. " Oranges ! " Who has not heard of and 
eaten the oranges of Fayal ? But, unless one has 
eaten them there, the less he says about them 
the better. The oranges of Fayal and St. Micha- 
el's are like some people of sensitive natures : they 
lose when they forsake their native soil. The lit- 
tle hamlet of the Flamengoz is the most charming 
of the many choice spots of this magical isle, re- 
tired as it is in a ravine, and yet looking forth 
peacefully upon the ocean and the aspiring sum- 
mit of Pico. 

The fortress-like rock of Castello Branco is 
another charming place for an afternoon's excur- 
sion ; but when one wishes entirely to seclude 
himself even from the sleepy activity of Horta, 
then let him ride up to the Caldera or crater. 
Fayal is really a crust of earth formed around a 
slumbering volcano, the rim of whose crater is 
about thirty-five hundred feet above the sea. 
The crater itself is a circle a mile in diameter, 



THE AZORES. 131 

and its perpendicular sides are seventeen hundred 
feet deep. By looking to his steps one may de- 
scend safely to the bottom. The floor of the cra- 
ter is carpeted with moss-like vegetation. In the 
center is a fathomless lake, and also a small cone 
covered with shrubs and perforated with another 
crater. Over the edges of the Caldera the light 
clouds silently gather and spill over into the abyss 
like noiseless waterfalls. The solitude and the si- 
lence are sublime. I certainly never experienced 
elsewhere such a complete sense of loneliness as 
when treading on the velvet-like floor of the cra- 
ter of Fayal, except when shut in by a wall of 
midnight blackness in a lightning-riven storm at 
sea. 

But I saw a wilder sight when I climbed the 
precipitous sides of Pico, seven thousand six hun- 
dred and thirteen feet above the sea, and on the 
minute point of its upper cone, where the stones 
were hot and the steam issued forth, gazed on the 
tremendous coils of solid lava twisted like writh- 
ing dragons in the crater below, and, beyond and 
under the long ranks of clouds, the isles of the 
Azorean Archipelago, and the infinite blue of the 
ocean encircling all and fading off into the sky. 
The ascent of Pico occupied one day by starting 
at three in the morning, but two days are usually 
allowed for the trip. 

The birds have a pretty custom at these islands. 
I refer to the canaries, not the gulls and petrels. 



132 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

Green canaries, from which the yellow ones of 
domestic life are only separated by the evolution 
of civilization, are numerous at Fayal. One may 
not only hear them sing on the bushes, but he 
may, if sufficiently hard-hearted, also have them 
served up choicely grilled on a platter. During 
the day these songsters live in Fayal, but as night 
comes on they take wing and return across the 
strait to roost at Pico. Some naturalist of curious 
mind should investigate the cause of this whim ; 
it might lead to the discovery of certain unknown 
climatic and physical differences between the two 
islands. 

There is another singular difference — curious 
because the reason is not clearly evident, and may 
be owing to a similar cause : I refer to the types 
of the people — especially the peasantry — of Pico 
and Fayal ; in fact, they are all peasants on the 
former. Now, why is it that the women of Fayal 
are less fair than their sisters of Pico, who are 
more finely shaped, and have more attractive and 
intelligent features, and a more graceful mien, 
being sometimes possessed of almost classical 
beauty ? The difference is so marked as to sug- 
gest a distinct stock. 

All the summer long the idler may speculate 
on these questions, and dream in the soft air of 
Fayal, and satisfy himself with the luscious fruits 
of the isle. But when the winds of September 
begin to blow, one remembers that the dampness 



THE AZORES. 133 

and storms of winter render Fayal undesirable at 
that season. 

Then, perhaps, he may go farther southward 
and eastward about two hundred miles, past the 
tremendous precipices of St. George's Island, 
which I have good reason to remember, for twice 
I narrowly escaped shipwreck there in heavy 
gales ; past Terceira, whose city of Angra is the 
capital of the Azores ; past St. Mary's (where 
Columbus landed and offered thanks when return- 
ing from his first voyage of discovery), by sub- 
marine volcanoes, by hidden reefs and beetling 
cliffs, until the ragged outline of the spine of St. 
Michael's looms above the sea. Those pinnacle- 
like peaks are all dormant or extinct craters ; the 
soil of the island is the red earth that came forth 
untold ages ago ; and from time to time the wa- 
ters around are agitated not only by the terrific 
storms of the Atlantic, but also by steaming gey- 
sers bursting forth from submarine caldrons, and 
sometimes an island springing to the surface for a 
few days and then disappearing. And yet these 
terrors are more apparent than real, and St. Mi- 
chael's, with its beautiful capital, its picturesque 
villages, its vast and magnificent plantations of 
oranges, its lovely vistas, romantic gorges, and 
enchanting climate, may justly be considered one 
of the fairest paradises of this world. 

Although the winter winds are nearly as vio- 
lent at St. Michael's as at Fayal, yet the superior 



134 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

size of the island, offering greater advantages for 
shelter, renders it more advantageous as a winter 
resort than its sister isle. So violent are the 
winds of the Azores at that season, that the 
orange plantations are protected not only by high 
walls, but also by a barrier of trees, generally of 
the tough species called the incenso. 

Pont a Delgada, the capital of St. Michael's 
and the largest town of the Azores, is a hand- 
some city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, 
and is protected from the surges of the Atlantic 
by a mole and a jetty. The streets are finely 
laid out, and the cathedral, ornamented with 
quaint gargoyles, is a rather imposing structure. 
But the market-place is the most interesting spot 
in Ponta Delgada. At six o'clock in the morn- 
ing it is thronged with peasantry from the planta- 
tions. The only market-wagons one sees are don- 
keys, if one may use the expression ; sometimes 
two of them are employed, walking side by side, 
and carrying two or three barrels or baskets 
swinging to a pole whose ends are laid on the 
backs of the animals. 

Laguna, several miles to the eastward of the 
capital, is a picturesque collection of villas and 
peasant-huts. The nobility have some fine places 
about the island, for it boasts of several counts. 
To the invalid the most interesting spot in St. 
Michael's is the collection of thermal chalybeate 
springs called the Furnas. They are reached by 



THE AZORES. 135 

a ride of nine or ten hours from Ponta Delgada, 
by gorge and glen, through the most romantic 
scenery, from which the broad ocean is ever visi- 
ble. These springs have long been famous for 
their healing qualities ; but, were it not for the 
charming climate in which they are situated, we 
should hardly consider it worth while for one to 
resort to them while there are so many springs of 
not inferior quality more conveniently situated 
on the adjoining continent. 

The Azores are nine in number. Each island 
has characteristics of its own, and all are worth 
visiting; the westernmost of them is Flores. They 
are divided into three groups, and Flores, with its 
little adjacent neighbor Corvo, stands quite dis- 
tant from the others. It is only nine miles long, 
and is surrounded and apparently separated from 
the nineteenth century by tremendous precipices, 
which dip in the most uncompromising manner 
into the surges below, while the central ridge of 
the island is broken into volcanic peaks. But 
when the heaving billows of the Atlantic swiftly 
bear the boat through a narrow break in the bar- 
rier of foam-whitened lava reefs which inclose 
the little port where only boats can find a shel- 
ter, and one lands on the miniature beach and 
climbs up into the little town that straggles over 
the edge of the cliffs, and rambles among the 
vineyards and wheat-fields along the uplands, and 
makes the acquaintance of the simple island-folk, 



136 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

then such a consciousness of relief conies over 
him, such a feeling of repose seems to steep the 
senses, that he takes a long breath of rapture 
and says to himself : " Here — inclosed by this 
ocean and these cliffs, and secluded from the rush 
of this busy age — here at last I can begin to live ; 
here at last is philosophic ease ; here is tranquil- 
lity, happiness, and peace ; here Jacques might 
soliloquize, here Rosalind or Orlando might make 
love as pleasantly as in the grove of Arden, if se- 
clusion and a delicate climate and a peaceful sce- 
nery are conducive to such pursuits." 

The huts of the peasantry cling here and there 
to the brow of the precipices, or nestle in the ra- 
vines ; and water- fowl gather in large flocks about 
the lake on the uplands. The absolute impossi- 
bility of walking more than nine miles in any di- 
rection, or of escaping from the island except in 
a small boat, or once in a long time when a ship 
touches there for provisions, tends to curb unruly 
ambition and soothes the mind with a modest if 
not a very elevating content. 

Santa Cruz, the only town, and numbering 
perhaps two thousand inhabitants, is a most fas- 
cinating little place — at least so it seemed to me. 
It is not exactly beautiful, but it is full of senti- 
ment. There is a simple pathos in the existence 
of the people who there weave the web of their 
simple and unknown lives, so near to Europe, and 
yet so cut off by the ocean that they might al- 



THE AZORES. 137 

most as well be in the Pacific. Small as is the 
town, the people are yet divided into classes as 
if in some large metropolis. There is the mon- 
eyed class of planters, who succeed in making a 
little go a great way there, who live in not inele- 
gant houses of stone, shaded by vines and fig- 
trees, who send their sons to Paris and Coimbra 
for an education ; those sons after a while return 
to pass intelligent but uneventful lives in their 
native isle. They wield their little social sway 
with mingled dignity and ease, nor lord it with 
too high a hand over the peasants who till their 
fields and faithfully serve them from generation 
to generation. Many of the peasant-girls of 
Flores are characterized by an unusually fine 
type of Latin beauty, which it is much to be re- 
gretted they lose early. 

There is an old convent in Santa Cruz, in- 
closed by walls and overlooking the sea. To me 
it offered strange attractions. On the mossy tiles 
of the roof the long, sere grass shook and sang in 
the winds from the sea, while from below for ever- 
more floated up the deep moan of the ocean beat- 
ing in the hollow caves of the isle. Many of the 
cells of the quaint old building were empty, for 
years ago the monks all left, when Dom Pedro 
abolished convents throughout the dominions of 
Portugal. But a few of the deserted cells are now 
occupied by some of the poor folk of the town. 
Among them was an old man, who many years 



138 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

ago came to Flores froin the continent to pursue 
the craft of a jeweler, and there he passed his days 
in fashioning curious Oriental-looking ear-rings 
and bracelets for the peasant-women. He was 
quite a genius in his way, and a philosopher as 
well, and seemed content with the spot in which 
he had laid his humble fortunes. But behind his 
gray beard, and in the keen eyes that flashed un- 
der his shaggy eyebrows, meth ought I saw a lurk- 
ing regret that his powers had not sought a wider 
field ; or perhaps it was some disappointment of 
his early life which had left its mark upon his 
character, and made itself apparent in spite of 
the guise of content he wore. 

I left Flores with unbounded regret, and I 
have often wished myself there again. Whether 
it was the seclusion, the quiet, the climate, the 
charming unaffected hospitality of the people — 
one or all — I can not tell ; but I was singularly 
attracted by what I saw there. 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 

It is by no means essential that visitors who 
resort to the Channel Islands should be invalids ; 
for many, indeed, go merely for pleasure. I am 
sure not a few of the gay Lotharios one sees in 
the summer evenings on the quay of St. Heliers, 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 139 

the chief town of Jersey, and the not unfestive 
damosels who there display their charms with rol- 
licking freedom, must be there for pleasure as 
well as health, But if, being an invalid, one 
should happen in Jersey during the winter season, 
he may find himself wonderfully benefited by the 
genial air and the inviting accommodations of the 
abundant boarding and lodging houses, of which 
Bree's is one of the best. The hospitality of the 
people — that is, of those who are anybody — de- 
pends upon whether one has a letter of intro- 
duction from a sufficiently exalted source. One 
might better have never been born than go either 
to Jersey or Guernsey without such credentials, 
unless he finds sufficient company in himself. 

But, aside from these insular peculiarities, 
which are always even more intense in her depen- 
dencies than in Great Britain itself, the good peo- 
ple of Jersey, and of Guernsey also, are a wonder- 
fully handsome race (Mrs. Langtry, the reigning 
belle of London, is from Jersey), and are animated 
by many sterling qualities. Large, well formed, 
blue-eyed, and meeting you with a frank, half- 
imperious air, speaking old Norman-French as well 
as the English tongue, you see in them an un- 
mixed type of a race now nearly extinct except 
when mingled with other blood — the hale, hardy, 
iron-nerved and iron-sinewed Northmen who set- 
tled in Normandy, and, led by William the Con- 
queror, laid Britain at their mercy on the bloody 



140 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

field of Hastings. Is there not, then, a quaint 
fitness in the claim of these Normans of the 
Channel Islands to be the rightful rulers and 
owners of Great Britain and its possessions, since 
they alone represent the Normans who captured 
England ? 

One who looks at Jersey with a sailor's eye 
would naturally consider it a most cruel and for- 
bidding spot. It is completely beset and sur- 
rounded by a network of rugged reefs, quick- 
sands, and precipices. In a gale of wind, I must 
confess, I have never seen a more angry and piti- 
less coast than the southern coast-line of Jersey, 
beaten as it is by surges of enormous height, and 
absolutely white with a roaring mass of foam, 
from the fierce Corbiere, girt by a chevaux de 
/rise of rocks, to the treacherous entrance of the 
port of St. Helier's. But when one is once snug- 
ly within the breakwater, what a change comes 
over him ! He defies the roughest storms, and, 
like the lotus-eaters, sings to himself that he will 
no longer roam, nor sigh for the far-off, dim 
home-land from which he has wandered ; for he 
finds the air delicate and the scenery most pleas- 
ant and seductive, and life at once assumes a cheer- 
ful cast. 

There are two miniature railways in Jersey ; 
one runs to Gorey, and the other to St. Aubin's, a 
most delightful village on a bay lined with beau- 
tiful sands. This is one of the most attractive 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 141 

resorts in Jersey, and, having a front to the south, 
is especially desirable in the winter season. 

In the days of old there were pirates or gen- 
tlemen of the seas in those waters, who found the 
bowers and maidens of Jersey so congenial that, 
quite too often for the content of the islanders, 
they made descents on its coast which boded no 
good. It was to mislead the rovers by entangling 
them in a labyrinth of greenery, thus giving the 
islanders time to overtake and waylay them, that 
Jersey was intersected with an inextricable sys- 
tem of narrow-winding lanes, constantly cross- 
ing and recrossing each other, overhung by dense 
foliage and lined with shrubbery and hedges 
closely intertwined. The result, originally due to 
piratical incursions, is one of exceeding loveliness 
and a seemingly exhaustless beauty. The choicest 
nooks are hidden away out of sight, and one is 
constantly coming unawares upon an unsuspected 
bower, or a lane specked with sunHght sifting 
through the overarching leaves, while the soft 
warm air even in midwinter is almost heavy with 
the fragrance of flowers. Cottages also greet one 
in the same unforeseen manner, peeping, with 
diamond panes, ivied gables, and thatched roofs, 
through glimpses of the underwood. 

If one sometimes half cloys with the very 
richness of this rural beauty, there is Mount Or- 
gueil Castle, near the fishing-port of Gorey — a 
mighty and majestic pile on the east coast, stand- 



142 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

ing with a royal mien upon red granite cliffs near- 
ly three hundred feet above the sea, grim, savage, 
desolate, and sublime, beaten by the surges and 
the storms, and folding in its iron heart the mem- 
ory of the garrisons that have kept ward and 
wassail on its ramparts and in its vaulted guard- 
rooms, and the sadder memory of those who have 
been hurled from its battlements or hung from 
them in rusty chains which still clank from the 
ramparts, or have been cast into its dark oubli- 
ettes, or lingered in its narrow and noisome dun- 



For a shilling the present inoffensive warder 
will allow one to see these things, to shudder in 
the narrow cell of Pym, and to rejoice, as he 
wends home to his cozy fireside, and snug cur- 
tains, and warm supper at the inn, that he lived 
not in those rugged days. And yet, as people 
then knew of nothing better, I have no doubt 
they were full as happy as we are to-day. The 
world may be wiser now, it may have a larger 
scientific knowledge, but it is not happier. A 
certain moderate average of happiness is distrib- 
uted to each generation, and no more. Knowledge 
may be power, but it is not necessarily happiness, 
at least in this world ; and of the next we know 
little enough. 

The cliffs and caves of Jersey, as of all the 
Channel Islands, also furnish a great attraction 
to the visitor. Often of great height and very 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 143 

abrupt, and sometimes splintered into such bold 
points as the Pinnacle at L'Etac, which springs 
like a lighthouse above the edge of a precipice, 
they kindle the imagination, while the brilliant 
mosses, vines, and flowers that drape their sides 
like gorgeous tapestry, afford an endless study to 
the artist and the naturalist. 

Cautiously picking her way between the net- 
work of reefs which beset the entrance to the 
artificial harbor of St. Peter's Port in Guernsey, 
the steamer from Jersey moored alongside the 
pier toward nightfall on that stormy day when I 
made my first visit to Guernsey. As I threaded 
my way up the steep winding streets to my lodg- 
ings at the old Government House, it seemed as if 
I had fallen upon some fortified rock-town of the 
middle ages. St. Peter's Port is crowded over a 
slope of considerable steepness, and is divided into 
the old and the new town. The former lies along 
the port, and is faced by a spacious esplanade 
protected by a sea-wall. The port was originally 
built by Edward I. On a rock at the end of one 
of the piers stands Castle Cornet, a massive pile 
dating back, it is asserted, to the Romans, al- 
though much altered, of course, since then. Three 
hundred years ago it was greatly injured by the 
explosion of its powder - magazine, which was 
struck by lightning. 

On the esplanade stands a colossal bronze 
statue of Prince Albert, and adjoining it is the 



144 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

parish church, as it is called, par excellence. It 
is one of the oldest buildings in the Channel 
Islands, and well deserves attention for its archi- 
tectural beauty, which is after the Flamboyant- 
Gothic style ; it is enriched by elegant stained 
windows. As one wanders about the steep lanes 
radiating from this venerable relic of the past, he 
is surprised to find such austere massiveness in 
the buildings, and such crookedness in the narrow 
streets, broken by a curious succession of stair- 
ways, intersected at the landings by cross-lanes. 
The new town extends in the rear of the old town. 
While in the old quarter the houses are generally 
built of somber granite, in the new they are as 
universally enlivened by a coating of tinted stuc- 
co hung with ivy. I think it would be difficult 
within the same space to find elsewhere so many 
charming streets and houses as in the new quar- 
ter of St. Peter's Port. To almost all is attached 
either the family name or an attractive title in 
English or French, as " Grove Lodge," or " Bon 
Repos"; and garden-plats neatly kept, or rows of 
ivied elms, adorn the front. 

It is the pure Norman stock that we find here, 
still speaking Norman-French ; but the dialect 
of Guernsey differs slightly from that of Jersey. 
English is also spoken by the better families. 
Services in the churches and proceedings in the 
courts and Legislature are held in French. The 
islands are very nearly independent of Great Brit- 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 145 

ain, being permitted virtuaUy to govern them- 
selves, while they owe a sort of feudal allegiance 
to the Queen. Stranger still, each island has a 
government and laws of its own. These laws 
still savor of the rough emergencies of the mid- 
dle ages, and are sometimes quite too arbitrary 
for the freedom of this advanced age. Notwith- 
standing this semi-independence, the Queen boasts 
no subjects more loyal than these Normans of the 
Channel Isles. Some of England's most distin- 
guished soldiers and sailors came from them, and 
a number of noted artists, including Millais, ISTaf- 
tel, and Ouless. 

The islanders are generally Protestants ; 
churches and chapels abound, and outward piety 
at least seems to be at a premium. The super- 
stitions of former ages are generaUy losing their 
hold. But in localities most remote from town, 
and among the older people, a few curious super- 
stitions still obtain belief. On Christmas-night 
there are some even in St. Peter's Port who can 
not be induced to draw water from a well. Oth- 
ers dare not enter a stable at the witching hour 
of midnight lest they should surprise the cattle, 
asses, and sheep on their knees adoring the infant 
Saviour. 

One of the first things the stranger learns on 

coming to these islands is the exclusiveness of the 

upper classes, their hauteur and pride, and the 

contempt in which tradesmen are held. On the 

10 



146 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

other hand, it is said that the distinction between 
the " sixties " and the " forties," as the two classes 
are termed, is wearing away. 

St. Sampson's is the only other town in Guern- 
sey after St. Peter's Port, from which it is two 
miles distant. The road to it passes by the sea, 
picturesquely varied by here and there an old 
martello tower or an ivy-draped fragment of a 
ruined castle. The church of St. Sampson's, al- 
though the oldest building in the island, having 
been consecrated in 1111, offers no architectural 
attractions. More interesting are the Vale Castle 
adjoining, and the Druidic remains. Long before 
Rollo the Norman conquered these islands, long 
before St. Sampson or the galleys of Julius Ca?- 
sar crossed the seas, the Celt had braved these per- 
ilous waters in his clumsy bark, and had scaled 
these almost inaccessible shores. In those mist- 
hidden ages of an unrecorded antiquity, the Druids 
practiced their mystic and bloody rites here, and 
left dolmens and cromlechs to preserve the tale 
of a race that might otherwise have passed away 
from these isles into the utter nihilism of oblivion. 
Many of these interesting vestiges have unfortu- 
nately been destroyed ; of those which remain, 
one of the most important is at L'Ancresse Com- 
mon, near St. Sampson's. It is composed of seven 
enormous slabs of which the largest weigh thirty 
tons ; it is seventeen feet long, ten feet wide, and 
four and a half feet thick. When it was opened, 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 147 

urns, human bones, amulets, and weapons were 
found in it. 

St. Sampson's and the adjacent portion of the 
little island are invested with literary interest, as 
several of the scenes of Victor Hugo's "Toilers 
of the Sea " are laid there. Although altogether 
a creation of the fancy, that vivid romance is en- 
livened by striking and truthful descriptions of 
the scenery and people of Guernsey. 

The south side of the island is by far the most 
interesting part of Guernsey to the artist or scien- 
tist. The southern coast is scalloped with several 
beautiful bays, presenting a great variety of gro- 
tesque granitic shapes ;. the cliffs sometimes rise 
over three hundred feet from the delicate silvery 
sands at their base. Dark caverns, echoing the 
thunder of the Atlantic surges, are hollowed into 
the sides of the precipices ; and rivulets, half con- 
cealed by many varieties of flowering shrubs, 
musically descend from the plateau above. Icart 
Point, Le Moulin, Huet Bay, the Gouffre, Petit 
Bot Bay, Gull Rock, or Pleinmont, are alternate- 
ly the favorites of the enthusiastic visitor ; but 
the lowering, precipitous, lightning - torn and 
blackened crags of Pleinmont seemed to me to 
offer the most sublime sea-view in Guernsey, gaz- 
ing over the misty wastes of the gray and lone 
Atlantic, and receiving the full brunt of its surges 
and storms. 

Near the brow of Pleinmont Victor Hugo laid 



148 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

the scene of some of the most startling passages 
of the " Toilers of the Sea." The small stone 
guard-house which he makes the smugglers' ren- 
dezvous stands there still, near the edge of the cliff. 
But to the man of business the famous breed 
of Guernsey cattle is of far more interest than 
cliffs and romances. By some the Guernsey cow 
is more esteemed than that of Alderney ; it is 
larger, and its ruddy color is more decided. The 
cows are milked thrice daily, and the milk is 
churned without skimming ; a good cow should 
yield one pound of butter daily. The cows are 
most carefully tended, and the grass on which 
they feed is enriched by vraic, a species of kelp 
gathered from the reefs at low tide. The vraic- 
harvests are appointed by law, one in the spring 
and one in August. Peasants and fishermen turn 
out in the season with boats and carts, frequently 
with lanterns at all hours of the night ; it is a 
picturesque occupation, although attended with 
some risk from the overloading of boats or fre- 
quent sudden rising of the tides, which in the 
Channel Islands are of extraordinary height and 
velocity. The cows are tethered when feeding ; 
in this way they give more milk than if glutted 
with food, and while they are cropping the grass 
on one side of a field, it springs up on the other. 
They are not allowed to stand much in the sun. 
The breed is preserved from intermixture with 
other breeds by arbitrary laws. 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 149 

Facing the eastern coast of Guernsey are the 
islands of Herin and Jethou, about three miles 
distant from St. Peter's Port. The former is a 
mile and a half long, and in some places very- 
hold. It is chiefly valuable as a resort for sports- 
men, who give custom to the hotel. Jethou lies 
close at hand, but is much smaller, and peopled 
chiefly by rabbits. 

Sark is beyond these islands, about seven miles 
from Guernsey. In point of scenery and situation 
it is one of the most romantic and attractive of the 
Atlantic islands. The approach to the island is 
almost always attended with danger, and except in 
mild weather no boat can either land or leave, such 
is the savage velocity and turbulence of the raging 
tides, rushing in all directions around the shore 
with the utmost violence, and filling the caves 
with hollow dirges for the wretches who have so 
often perished on that merciless coast. Some- 
times, even in summer, weeks pass without a pos- 
sibility of making a landing there. In winter one 
must depend entirely on half -decked Sark boats 
of five or six tons burden. In summer a small 
steamer plies between Guernsey and Sark ; but, 
small as it is, it can not enter the miniature port, 
the smallest in Europe, formed by a breakwater 
carried across a little cove called the Creux. The 
interior of the island is reached from the beach 
only by an opening pierced through the surround- 
ing wall of perpendicular granite. 



150 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

Sark is about three miles and a half long, and 
is divided into Great and Little Sark. The latter 
is a small peninsula at the southern end, united to 
the main portion by a curtain of rock about two 
hundred yards long, called the Coupe. (How many 
of the names in these islands show the Norman 
origin of the people !) Narrowing toward the top 
like a wedge, it is crossed three hundred feet above 
the sea by a giddy path not over five feet wide, 
so hazardous to an unsteady eye that one person 
who was born and lived to old age on Little Sark 
never dared to cross over the Coupe. The sub- 
lime cliffs surrounding the island are festooned 
with highly colored lichens ; and the magnificent 
caves are gorgeous with beautiful submarine veg- 
etation and numerous varieties of algae, shell-fish, 
and mollusks. The massive cluster of rocks called 
the Autelets, the Creux du Derrible, a wonderful 
cavern, and D'lxcart Bay are among the most 
remarkable objects of this choice little island, 
whose scenery has been well suggested by the 
water-color paintings of Paul Naftel. 

The interior of Sark is alternately pastoral and 
picturesque, and abounds in delightful lanes and 
nooks of leafy underwood. The huts of the peas- 
antry are very massively constructed, often hav- 
ing walls six feet thick, probably as a protection 
against the gales of winter. Traces of the Druids 
exist, and in the dark ages Sark was the haunt of 
corsairs, who from this impregnable stronghold 



THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 151 

darted forth on ships passing up the Channel. 
Later the isle was held by the French, but during 
the reign of Elizabeth it was taken by an English 
crew by means of an ingenious stratagem, and has 
ever since been an appanage of England. It is 
still governed, however, by a feudal lord called 
the Seigneur, who has associated with him a legis- 
lature composed of the forty landholders of the 
island, who naturally are not likely to relax the 
law of entail. 

The climate of the Channel Islands is moist 
but mild, and varies slightly in all, although they 
are so near together. The average temperature 
of Jersey is warmer than that of Guernsey, but 
more damp and relaxing. Guernsey is warmer 
in winter, and cooler in summer. The rainfall is 
chiefly from October to January, and snow is 
rare. The climate of Guernsey is reputed to be 
the most equable in Europe, while the saline prop- 
erties in the ah*, common to small islands, render 
the dampness less relaxing than it would be with 
the same temperature on a continent. The cli- 
mate of Alderney and Sark is more dry than that 
of the neighboring isles of the group, and they 
are therefore resorted to by those whose systems 
have become enervated by too long a residence in 
Jersey or Guernsey. 

The Channel Islands may be recommended to 
those suffering from lung-diseases who require to 
avoid raw winds or violent and sudden changes : 



152 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

and they especially afford a delightful resort from 
April to September inclusive. Rheumatic or neu- 
ralgic patients should be more cautious in visiting 
the Channel Islands ; but nervous exhaustion may 
be overcome by a few weeks or months at Guern- 
sey or Sark. Tourists and invalids are furnished 
with all needed comforts at the numerous and 
excellent boarding-houses and hotels. 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 

One can never weary of these Channel Islands ; 
but if he remembers that life is short, and that 
it will be incomplete without having seen the Isle 
of Wight, he will be moved by a noble discon- 
tent until he steps foot on that far-famed paradise 
of England. 

The Isle of Wight resembles the character of 
an Englishman. It shows on approach a some- 
what stern, reserved, and forbidding aspect, faced 
as it is with lofty and uncompromising cliffs. 
But when one has fairly made a landing and 
reached its heart, then he finds it full of attrac- 
tion and extending a genial welcome, which is 
sincere and enduring. The island is an epitome 
of England ; we here find in miniature many of 
the features of the adjacent island. Do we want 
to visit castles and clamber over ivied ruins, there 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 153 

is Carisbrooke Castle at the little shire town of 
Newport, near the center of the island. There 
are few nobler ruins of the middle ages remaining 
to our time. The crumbling battlements are al- 
most hidden by a profusion of ivy. The Xorman 
keep is a grand old pile, and the historical associa- 
tions are of a nature to arouse the sympathies of 
all ; for there King Charles I. was imprisoned, and 
there his daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, died. 

That religious sentiment which has always been 
a leading trait of the serious English character also 
finds material for pious reflection in the cottages 
and graves of the Dairyman's Daughter at Arre- 
ton and little Jane the young cottager at Brad- 
ford, the pathos of whose simple lives has been 
so well told by Leigh Richmond in his "Short 
and Simple Annals of the Poor " ; while the artist 
and the poet may in turn be exhilarated by the 
charming hamlets and towns lying in valleys or 
clustering on the slope of the downs. There too, 
on the southern coast, are the stupendous preci- 
pices of Shale and Alum Bays, the one a grand 
gray monotony of chalk, the other glorious with 
its brilliantly tinted strata, evermore reverberat- 
ing the thunders of the sea and filling the soul 
with awe ; while the savage chasms of Black 
Gang Chine bring to the memory a tale of many 
a melancholy wreck. It was with a sort of relief 
that I turned thence to the gay piers of Ryde and 
gazed on the graceful yachts idly floating on the 



154 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

quiet water of a summer morning before one of 
the most inviting watering-places in the world. 

It is but an afternoon walk from Ryde to Shank- 
lin, the sweetest village of England's fairest isle. 
The cottages have been dropped here and there 
on the rolling surface with little attempt at order 
— here in a trim row on the edge of a precipice 
that overlooks the ocean breaking at its feet, 
there straggling down into a hollow and nestling 
under the almost impenetrable shade of closely 
woven shrubbery. Roses clamber over the lat- 
tices in the quaint old English windows filled 
with diamond-shaped panes, and maidens fair as 
any that Gainsborough or Reynolds painted are 
seen behind the hedges culling flowers. 

Wandering forth from the inimitable beauty 
of this ideal hamlet, and strolling southward, we 
come to the ravine and waterfall called Shanklin 
Chine, where Keats probably hastened his death 
by exposure to its influences ; for it is not only 
pretty, but damp and chilly, and I remember I 
was glad to escape thence, and on the magnifi- 
cent slope above lie on the grass and gaze on the 
placid azure symbol of eternity, the ocean, on the 
glorious afternoon of a perfect summer day. 

Along this shore we are in the choicest por- 
tions of the isle, where all is so charming that one 
is constantly reversing the opinion and enthusi- 
asm of the previous hour, and declaring the scene 
actually before his eyes more delightful than 



THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 155 

those he has just gazed upon. And thus, when 
we come to Bonchurch, the little village under 
the cliff, with its ancient miniature peak-roofed 
chapel and memorable graves all concealed by- 
magnificent foliage almost overhanging the sea, 
we are spellbound. There is only one thing that 
can then draw away the enraptured wanderer, 
who after much roving thinks he has at last found 
the ideal paradise, and that is to take him on his 
material side. He is perchance aweary with his 
long stroll ; whisper the magical word dinner, 
and suggest that at the " Crab and Lobster " at 
Ventnor, just beyond, one can be better enter- 
tained than any other where in the " Wight." I 
am happy to say that one may venture on such a 
statement with due regard to the truth. A more 
comfortable bed, a choicer dinner, at an inn, may 
not be found in the United Kingdom. The little 
low-roofed stone hostel, completely draped with 
ivy, which first bore the name, is still attached to 
the larger and more modern building that has 
succeeded it in the public esteem. 

Behind this cozy hostel soars Boniface Down, 
a steep cliff many hundred feet high ; and below 
it are the roofs of Ventnor, ranged along precipi- 
tous streets and crooked lanes. The town is clus- 
tered over the famous Undercliff, whose forma- 
tion can be best described by saying that several 
ages ago a vast piece of the Down broke away 
and tumbled toward the sea. A narrow, winding, 



156 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

undulating plateau was thus made between the 
cliff and the ocean, with a precipice on either 
side, one dipping to the beach, the other soaring 
from the Undercliff against the sky, seamed and 
bastioned and crenellated like a tremendous for- 
tress. The plateau which forms the Undercliff is 
a most extraordinary and beautiful piece of irreg- 
ular ground, interspersed with natural mounds 
that have in the course of ages become overgrown 
with turf and trees. 

It is on this rough but exceedingly pictu- 
resque ground that Ventnor is built, and is now 
rapidly growing into a leading watering-place. 
The numerous inviting cottages add greatly to 
its attractions, and the softness of the air makes 
it probably the safest winter retreat for the in- 
valid to be found in the British Isles. Flowers 
bloom there all the year round, and it is the espe- 
cial spot of the Isle of Wight where the consump- 
tive can be benefited during the winter months. 
This is due to the circumstance that the Under- 
cliff faces the southeast, whose breezes are warm 
and soothing, and is protected from the raw 
winds of the north and west by the heights of 
Boniface Down. By the aid of private charity a 
noble hospital has been established at Ventnor 
for the benefit of such invalids as have not the 
means to resort thither unaided, or to go to the 
yet more advantageous sanitariums farther south. 

During the summer the nearness of the Isle of 



THE BAHAMAS. 157 

Wight to London causes it to be overrun by- 
cockneys enjoying their vacation in this paradise. 
Those who are annoyed by a crowd when seeking 
the retirement of nature will therefore find the 
other seasons more agreeable on the Isle of Wight. 



THE BAHAMAS. 

But all the world's paradises are not confined 
to the Eastern Hemisphere. The Pacific as well 
as the Atlantic, America no less than Europe and 
Asia, invite the wanderer to enjoy the beauty of 
scenery or revive his failing energies in their para- 
dises as well. Tahiti, ISTukahiva, Mauritius, Ja- 
maica, Cuba — the Queen of the Antilles — over 
whose cliffs the dense umbrage of palms hangs 
like plumes, and where the Hanas, like serpents, 
embrace in many folds the lithe stems, are glori- 
ously beautiful ; but too often the deadly miasma 
lurks in their bowers, or over them sweeps the 
dread march of the hurricane, or they are of such 
size as really to be excluded from our list of the 
world's resorts, not because they lack beauty, but 
because they are allied to continents, and to de- 
scribe or thoroughly to see and know them would 
take years, and a separate volume. 

With all the proud opulence of its scenery, 
Cuba failed to win my affections because the fierce 



158 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

and treacherous character of its people, the de- 
pressing influences of slavery, ever attended by 
the stealthy bloodhound, and the sudden cruelty 
of the yellow fever seemed to overbalance the 
quality of the scenery, and I care not to see it 
again. 

Not far north, however, are the Bahamas, 
which offer many of the attractions and few of 
the disadvantages of Cuba. New Providence, 
whose town of Nassau is a well-known sanita- 
rium, is from November until May a most win- 
ning spot with a moderate and equable tempera- 
ture, varying only five or six degrees daily. Cor- 
alline like its sisters, it is low, but overgrown 
with a semi - tropical vegetation that lends an 
indescribable charm to every view. I never could 
look on a cluster of cocoa-palms without emotion. 
The most graceful of trees, lithe and delicate 
as nymphs, when they sway with gentle cadence 
in the evening breeze, throwing back their long 
tufts of pendulous leaves like tresses, they re- 
semble maidens bathing by the shore and drying 
their hair in the wind. In the cocoa we see em- 
bodied the mystic poetry of motion and of form, as 
in no other object in nature except woman. 

The trade- winds blow at Nassau. That is 
enough : it expresses volumes ; it means content 
with life, health, gladness, and repose. No earthly 
paradise is perfect without the trade-winds, and 
with them a desert would be endurable. One 



THE BAHAMAS. 159 

does not go to Nassau to find antiquities or delve 
into historic lore ; he goes there to bask in the 
smiles of Nature in her most gracious moods. 

The history of the island is soon told. Time 
was when now and again a pirate held sway there ; 
Blackbeard was the most noted of these freeboot- 
ers. In revolutionary times it was a haunt of 
Tories, and Lord Dunmore, Colonial Governor of 
Virginia, fled thither, and built himself a house 
by the sea, which is still standing in the midst of 
a charming grove. During the Confederate war 
Nassau became a notorious nest for blockade-run- 
ners, and enormous profits were realized for a 
time. It must be evident that it is a kindness to 
the good people of Nassau not to look too curi- 
ously into their records. The antiquities consist 
of Fort Fincastle, a gray work on the hill behind 
the Royal Victoria Hotel, shaped like a paddle- 
box steamboat, and another quaint little fort on a 
point at the end of the town. 

Wrecking and the sponge-fisheries furnish a 
general means of livelihood. The former is on 
the decline, owing to the increase of lighthouses 
and the watchfulness of insurance companies. The 
sponge-fisheries give employment to five hun- 
dred sloops and schooners, and are very arduous. 
Four species of sponge are found there, of which 
the kind called the glove is in demand for surgi- 
cal operations. As the waters of the archipelago 
are very shallow, and generally with a white bot- 



160 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

torn of fine sand, the sponges are easily seen, and 
are torn from the rocks by hooks attached to long 
poles. Negroes abound ; sunlight agrees with 
them : they are often seen sleeping bareheaded on 
the hot side of a rock under the beating rays of the 
sun, where they fairly seem to sizzle ; they enjoy 
it. They divide their duties between the mysti- 
cism and noisiness of fetichism, voodoo-worship, 
and boisterous Methodism. Per contra, the balls 
at the Government House are very stiff and state- 
ly affairs, and formality and pretension have full 
sway in the upper classes. Intellectual culture is 
not a prominent feature of the people of the Ba- 
hamas, but they probably have enough for their 
necessities, and enough is as good as a feast. 

There are very few places that afford more at- 
tractions for yachting and picnicking. The numer- 
ous keys offer charming resorts for out-door par- 
ties, and there is good sailing in the lagoons which 
separate them when it is too rough for outside 
sailing. I shall not soon forget an exciting day 
when four trim yachts ran across the bar by the 
lighthouse, and beat in toward nightfall, and the 
boat I was sailing succeeded in coming in second, 
although the smallest of the fleet. Sport there 
is in abundance : sharks for those who like such 
savage game, and pigeons at the Lakes of Kil- 
larney, the pine-circled pools of New Providence, 
or at the Green Key. 

But there is an isle I love better than Nassau, 



THE BAHAMAS. 161 

sixty miles away on the eastern edge of the Ba- 
hama Banks ; it is Harbor Island, one of the least 
visited and choicest spots anywhere to be found. 
I went in the twenty-ton schooner which carried 
the royal mails. The craft was to sail at sunset, 
but a conference which the skipper and the writer 
of these pages held, whittling over the discussion 
while sitting on the bulwarks, dangling our feet 
over the transparent water, resulted in the sensi- 
ble conclusion that it was on the whole expedient 
for all concerned that the schooner should defer 
the hour of departure until midnight. By this 
arrangement I was able to go to a ball that night, 
where all the wit and beauty of Nassau were as- 
sembled, at the elegant mansion of one of her 
first citizens. After several merry hours, I tore 
myself away. " Take another claret-cup before 
you go," said my genial host. Then, leaving be- 
hind the glitter and the music, and the eloquent 
eyes which added such luster to the scene, I rushed 
out into the starlight and the breeze, and rapidly 
sped to the harbor-side, where, with her mainsail 
set, the little schooner chaffed and fretted to get 
away, like a pawing steed. As I leaped aboard, 
the skipper cried, " H'ist the jib ! " the foresail 
and gaff-topsail soon followed, and we dropped 
over the bar, leaving behind a town steeped in 
liquid shadows and silence. The flash of the 
lighthouse glanced across the sails as we rounded 
to on the starboard tack, and the low full moon 
11 



162 TIIE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

faced us with a long wake of silver, and whitened 
the rocking schooner as she leaned over to the 
mild trade-wind, and, slipping by the cocoa-tufted 
keys, danced toward Harbor Island. 

The next day we hove to off Spanish Wells, 
and made a landing to leave a dozen letters for 
that island. It is a quaint, curious, isolated spot, 
and the brown huts, elevated on posts by the edge 
of a palm-grove at the water-side, were almost as 
striking as the lank and singular appearance of 
the women. I confess that I like simplicity and 
all that, but must say I draw the line at limp 
calico skirts and barrel-shaped sun-bonnets. The 
thatched schoolhouse carried the mind far away 
to the missionary schools of the South Sea Islands. 
The schoolmaster seemed like one who had not 
tasted water for years. He was actually thirsting 
for intellectual nourishment, and followed us to 
the boat with an eagerness that was really pa- 
thetic. 

The devil has a backbone. I know this to be 
a fact, for I sailed by this spinal object in enter- 
ing the port of Dunmore Town. At least there 
is a long, crooked reef there, which goes by that 
name. How can I ever describe the gorgeous- 
ness of the colors of water and sky on that day ? 
Everything was vivid and intense. The shallow- 
ness of the water over the white coral bottom 
gave the sea the color of the most brilliant pol- 
ished malachite, except where it flowed over ledges 



THE BAHAMAS. 163 

covered with kelp, when it assumed a reddish tint. 
In the offing the wind deepened the color of the 
ocean to a dark, almost inky purple, starred with 
the flash of white-caps and breakers. The cloudless, 
overarching heavens were rosy-hued, and the dart- 
ing sea-birds seemed like bearers of light. Sway- 
ing groves of cocoa-palms on Harbor Island add- 
ed yet another indescribable charm to a scene 
indelibly impressed on my memory, as we shot 
under the lee of the molten silver tumbling on 
the reef, and dropped anchor before Dunmore 
Town. 

Harbor Island is but two miles long — a mere 
dot on the ocean. On the land side is a small 
town of two thousand people. Each house has 
its veranda and cocoanut-tree, and back of the 
town is a grove of palms, dense almost to black- 
ness. On the sea side is a superb coral beach, 
pinkish white in color and hard as a floor. There 
the inhabitants sink their wells : after digging a 
certain depth, the sea filters through the sand puri- 
fied of its salt, and the sides of the well are kept 
from falling in by barrels placed one above the 
other. If there are any other important features 
about Harbor Island, I did not notice them ; but 
yet what a magical isle it is ! I never wearied of 
lying on the veranda and listening to the per- 
petual roar of the surf and the sighing of the 
trade-wind in the tree-tops like the music of sum- 
mer rain. For two pence the round-faced pick- 



164 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

aninnies would keep me supplied a whole after- 
noon with jelly cocoanuts and bananas. And, as 
for the pineapples, there are no pines grown any- 
where else more luscious than those that the Har- 
bor-Islanders raise on a few acres of a certain 
red soil at the northern end of Eleuthera, a mile 
opposite from Dunmore Town. Eaten fully ripe, 
they are of a sweetness, an aroma, a nectareous 
juiciness, a melting succulence, such as no one has 
even dreamed of who has not eaten them on the 
spot where they are grown. A field of pine- 
apples is beautiful in color, when the fruit is 
allowed to ripen on the stalks ; yellow, scarlet, 
and green are interwoven like embroidered silk 
and gold on the maroon color of the ground. Of 
course I went to see Bottom Cove, a vast, natural 
limestone arch eighty feet high, on the neighbor- 
ing island of Eleuthera ; it looks much higher 
when one stands at its center, where it is but 
four or five feet wide and cracked at that. 

I also admired the bronze-stemmed and golden- 
crested aloes, decoratively soaring above the flat 
reaches of Eleuthera. But, after all, it was the 
long, dreamful hours fanned by the sea-winds at 
Dunmore Town that kept me lingering there, and 
made it almost impossible to sail away into the 
nineteenth century again. To be sure, one is not 
so luxuriously entertained on Harbor Island as in 
the elegant hotel at Nassau ; but when one lives 
out of doors and on fruits, he cares less for artifi- 



FORT GEORGE ISLAND. 165 

cial luxuries ; and, until the summer sets in, a 
more healthful, soul-invigorating air can scarcely 
be found than that of Harbor Island. 



FORT GEORGE ISLAND. 

Why is it that small islands have such a 
charm above large islands ? Explain it as you 
will, the fact remains. Perhaps it is because one 
learns their peculiar characteristics sooner, and 
thus grows familiar with all their attractions, and 
does not feel as if, like some characters, there 
is always about them some inaccessible nook 
that evades search and baffles our most patient 
scrutiny. At any rate, my vote is for small isl- 
ands, not above twenty or thirty miles long at 
the most, and the smaller the better. Fort 
George Island would seem to come within that 
category, for it is only a short five miles between 
its extreme points. Some pragmatical martinets 
might claim that, as it is only divided by nar- 
row creeks from several other islands, which are 
in turn separated from each other by seams of 
sea-water proportionately no wider than the 
cracks in a geographical puzzle, and as the main- 
land of Florida is but a few furlongs away, Fort 
George can hardly be considered an island. I de- 
cline to quibble or discuss the question. The 



168 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

place is entirely surrounded by water, and for in- 
sularity a spoonful of fluid will do as well as an 
ocean. And so far as concerns beauty, solitude, 
or tranquillity, Fort George might as justly be in 
the South Pacific as on the Floridian coast ; for 
it is tropical in its attractions, and balmy and 
healthful as the fountain of youth. 

Nature plays a curious illusion with the fancy 
at Fort George. The aspect is tropical, the vege- 
tation in copiousness and color suggests a climate 
under the line, while the botany is really that of 
the north temperate zone, with a few exceptions. 
The dense forests are composed of wonderful 
wide-spreading oaks, or tall, slender pines ; but 
the grape-vines and funereal Spanish moss cling 
to them with such serpentine embrace, or so fes- 
toon their far-reaching arms, as to convey the im- 
pression of tropical scenery ; while about the roots 
the spiky palmetto, called the Spanish bayonet, en- 
livens the shadowy underwood with the vividness 
of its glinting green. Here and there nature has 
also planted clusters of cabbage-palms in such a 
judicious and effective manner, that when one 
sees a group of them in the foreground, and be- 
yond them the yellow sands and the dark azure 
of the ocean lashed by the spring trades and 
breaking with a triple ridge of foam on the bar at 
the mouth of the St. John's River, you can hard- 
ly convince him that he is on the coast of the 
United States instead of the Windward Isles or 



FORT GEORGE ISLAM). 167 

the Philippines. There are three palms at Point 
Isabel, two together and one alone on the edge of 
a lagoon haunted by blue cranes, which have an 
indescribably delicate and suggestive gracefulness 
and beauty. 

From Barnegat to Key West there is no land 
so lofty on our coast as the central ridge of Fort 
George Island ; and yet it is only ninety feet high, 
although the compact and velvet-like forest which 
covers it makes it look somewhat higher. It is in 
color, therefore, as much as in form, that one of 
the charms of the isle is found. A certain blue 
flower opens abundantly every morning before 
sunrise, and closes when the sun is high, which 
gives a beautiful effect to the grass, and seems to 
moderate the heat by the infusion of cool color 
into the warm rays falling aslant on the glistening 
herbage. Where the forest retires the savanna 
is covered with dense salt grasses and diversified 
by lofty shell-mounds, overgrown with vines which 
have given the scientists no little trouble, for it is 
difficult to account for their origin. The mocking- 
bird makes the morning hours at Fort George 
melodious when he perches in the magnolias and 
rapturously flings his wild improvisations to the 
breeze. 

There is one settlement on the island, called 
Pilot Town. It numbers less than a dozen rustic 
cottages, and is just inside of the bar. There the 
pilots live who take ships up to Jacksonville. 



168 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

Their lookout is an old mast with a so-called 
crow's-nest on the trestle-trees at the top. Be- 
sides these houses, there are two good hotels for 
summer and winter, and several attractive cot- 
tages sprinkled at intervals in clearings. Some 
beautiful drives have also been opened through 
the woods. 

The most important place on Fort George is 
the Homestead, a rambling mansion with four 
peaked rooms at the angles, giving it somewhat 
the appearance of a fort. An arm of the sea, 
which divides Fort George from the snow-like 
sand - dunes of Talbot Island, is but a stone's 
throw from the house, and superbly venerable oak- 
trees bearded with gray moss shade the ground. 

Here of old lived and reigned Captain Kings- 
ley, a singular Scotchman who owned the island, 
and here built the ships which he sent to Africa 
for negroes to cultivate his cotton. On one of 
these trading voyages he received from an Afri- 
can prince the present of one of his daughters ; 
ne brought her to Fort George, gave her a smat- 
tering of an education, then made her his mis- 
tress, and finally married her, and bequeathed 
plantations to her children. The negro quarters 
of the old plantation are still standing, in a semi- 
circle green with ivy around the graves where 
they were buried, and flanked by a procession 
of palms. But the slaves are gone, and their 
tyrant has gone, leaving behind him a name that 



FORT GEORGE ISLAND. 169 

will live in that region for ages. He was un- 
doubtedly a man of striking and original char- 
acter, whose bad traits were tempered by many 
streaks of goodness. 

Other scenes this isle has beheld ; for, small as 
it is, it has yet earned for itself a place on the 
pages of history. There is no more romantic and 
thrilling episode in the annals of America than the 
feud of the French and Spanish adventurers who 
first colonized the banks of the River of May or 
St. John's, and built forts on each side of the en- 
trance, where Mayport and Pilot Town now 
stand, besides a larger fortification six miles up 
the river called Fort Charlotte. 

Of the treachery and fanaticism of Menendez, 
the surprises, the sieges, the patient endurance, 
the heroism, and the massacres which attended a 
bloody struggle that terminated by the successful 
expedition called the Vengeance of Dominique 
de Gourgues, one can read with profit and plea- 
sure in Parkman's masterly narrative. But there 
is one point he fails to make clear, for the reason, 
if I may venture to say so, that the able historian 
of those events does not seem to have visited Fort 
George Island. Why that name should have been 
given to it has up to this time been a matter of 
conjecture ; but it seems to me circumstantially 
evident that it is a corruption of Gourgues, and 
was taken from the adventurer who, so far as I 
can judge from a careful consideration of the 



170 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

scene and subject, captured a Spanish fort on 
this very island at the spot alluded to above. 
Exactly where stood the first of the three forts 
overpowered by the attack of De Gourgues, Park- 
man does not state. I am quite sure that it was 
on Fort George Island, about midway between 
Pilot Town and the Homestead. 

There, on that memorable day three centuries 
ago, the Spanish garrison were taking their dinner 
unaware of peril at hand, not even imagining a 
French force to be within thousands of miles. 
Swimming across the lagoon holding their swords 
and tomahawks between their teeth, the French 
and their Indian allies, led by Dominique de 
Gourgues, burning with fury to avenge his slaugh- 
tered countrymen, stole through the forest and 
began to swarm over the ramparts. " To arms ! 
the foe, the foe ! " yelled the thunderstruck Span- 
iards ; but too late. They were taken so un- 
awares that the French swept all before them, 
and in a few short moments the whole of the gar- 
rison lay dead in that earthwork of the isle hence- 
forth to be called Fort George Island. 



LAKE GEORGE. 

A sail of two hours in a steamer over the 
placid surface of the St. John's River took me to 
Jacksonville ; thence I flew by rail to the North- 



LAKE GEORGE. 171 

ern States, and found it a not unpleasing transi- 
tion to pass from the palm-groves of Fort George 
Island to the lovely bays and romantic cliffs and 
valleys of Lake George. There are few countries 
equal in beauty to some of our Northern States ; 
there are few lovelier spots than the valley of 
Wyoming or the valley of the Housatonic and 
the Berkshire Hills, or the noble shores of the 
Hudson. If we could say as much for the cli- 
mate, who would not be altogether satisfied with 
the scenery of our country ? But the sudden ex- 
tremes of heat and cold, while they may subserve 
some wise purpose in strengthening the thews 
and sinews and brains of the race that is being 
welded out of many on our shores, do certainly 
subtract much from the enjoyment of life. 

But, taking things as we find them, there is no 
fairer spot on the continent of North America 
than Lake George ; and it may be added that the 
climate of the adjacent parts, owing to its elevated 
position, is during the summer rather more brac- 
ing and equable than is generally found in the 
United States. 

Another attraction which the lake possesses 
above many parts of the country is its treasure 
of historic associations, in which it resembles some 
of the most*interesting resorts of the Old World. 
These memories, alternately tragical or glorious, 
lend a humanizing sentiment to the landscape, and 
throw around it an aureole which distinguishes 



172 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

and ennobles it above every other lake on the con- 
tinent. 

When the sun drops behind the western range 
of hills back of Caldwell, and the quietude of 
evening folds the land in repose, how interest- 
ing then to muse on the ruined, moss-green ram- 
parts of Fort George, now hidden in the woods, 
and musical with song of birds, and recall the 
day, one hundred and thirty years ago, when the 
tide of battle surged back and forth around the 
head of the lake, when Williams and Dieskau 
fell ! — or when we repair to the edge of the 
lake, where the outlines of the works of Fort 
William Henry still remain, while the music of 
the midnight ball floats by, and the distant sum- 
mer lightning plays over the dark water, the fancy 
flies back to the siege where French and English 
and Mohawk met, the three races symbolizing the 
three great types of modern times, the Saxon, the 
Latin, and the barbarian, striving for the mastery. 
The latter won for the time, when the dying 
shrieks of thirteen hundred murdered Englishmen 
rang on the air, and testified by their blood the 
treachery of the French and the cruelty of the 
Indian. But that tragedy sealed the doom of the 
dominion of both in America. 

A few seasons later, what a magnificent array 
was gathered at the same spot by Lord Abercrom- 
bie — fifteen thousand men in hundreds of boats, 
with music and banners, gliding down the lake, 



LAKE GEORGE. 173 

threading its hundred isles, and bivouacking for 
the night at Sabbath-Day Point ; then springing 
up with the morning star at the blast of the 
reveille, and marching to find their graves around 
the forest-hidden intrenchments of Ticonderoga ! 
For a force of that size to embark and to row 
from Sabbath-Day Point to the end of the lake, 
then to disembark, to form, and to march to the 
enemy's works several miles beyond, has always 
seemed to me a severe day's labor, and to storm 
the enemy's batteries the same day was too ardu- 
ous an undertaking, and perhaps contributed to 
the disastrous repulse of the British. 

But defeat with the English generally means 
ultimate victory, for they nerve themselves to 
greater energies for the next onset. The follow- 
ing year Lord Amherst accomplished the task in 
which Abercrombie had failed. Ticonderoga fell, 
and we all know what soon followed — the capture 
of Quebec, the death of Wolfe and Montcalm, 
and the overthrow of the French power in Amer- 
ica. Of the numerous legends and events which 
accompanied or grew out of these stirring scenes, 
the heroes and the romantic incidents, whose 
memory clings ivy-like to almost every part of 
Lake George, one can not talk without writing a 
volume. But whether one is riding, or sailing, or 
conversing, they are ever present as an arrib'e 
pensee. 

One of the most interesting objects on the 



174 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

lake is the grand precipice called the Deer's Leap. 
"We know not exactly the story which gave a 
name to the cliff ; but we readily picture to our- 
selves an Indian hunter, weary and hungry, who 
all a winter's day has vainly sought for game to 
carry home to his children in his wigwam. At 
length he starts a roe : she flies before him ; his 
arrow wounds but does not wholly disable her. 
Despair urges pursuer and pursued. Suddenly, 
as she runs her mad career, staining the snow with 
her life-blood, she comes upon the edge of a pre- 
cipice, but can not turn, for death is at her heels. 
With one piteous look behind, she gathers up her 
graceful limbs, darts into the air, and, spinning 
down the dizzy plunge, falls dead on the rocks far 
below. And so they called that precipice the 
Deer's Leap. How many that we know, hunted 
to the death by remorseless destiny, take such a 
fatal leap ! 

But pleasant thoughts are the rule at the lake, 
for everything about the scenery is of a charac- 
ter to soothe and fascinate the dreamer who seeks 
for rest on its magical shores. 

Regarded statistically, Lake George is thirty- 
four miles long, and is properly divisible into 
three nearly equal parts, each having a distinct 
character of its own. The first division, proceed- 
ing northward from Caldwell, extends to Tongue 
Mountain and Ten-Mile Island, and is quite broad 
at that point. From Ten-Mile Island is another 



LAKE GEORGE. 175 

division extending to Sabbath-Day Point, narrow 
and thickly strewed with the Harbor Islands, the 
scene of a bloody tragedy in the French and In- 
dian wars, and of many a merry "camping-out" 
party since then. This is the most mountainous 
part of the lake. On the west side are Tongue 
Mountain, including the Deer's Leap and Twin 
Mountain, a lofty, well-wooded ridge, crested by 
several peaks, and forming the east side of Ga- 
nouskie or Northwest Bay, which is the least in- 
teresting part of Lake George, although there is 
a certain grand simplicity about its five miles of 
solitude and semicircular sweep of hills. Cata- 
mount Mountain, a lofty eminence in the north- 
west, sweeps up from the water with majestic 
repose. 

Opposite Tongue Mountain is Black Moun- 
tain, which is a magnificent height soaring twen- 
ty-two hundred feet toward the clouds. From 
certain points it takes the form of a couchant lion, 
and its somewhat isolated position, as well as the 
place it holds about midway down the lake, gives 
it a commanding aspect that adds character to al- 
most every prospect on Lake George. In parts its 
lines are broken by picturesque ledges or pinnacled 
rocks that add greatly to its effect. 

Bolton Bay and village, including the quaint 
settlement called the Huddle, at the entrance to 
Northwest Bay, is one of the choicest spots on 
the lake, both for the variety and beauty of its 



176 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

views ; and the green islets reposing near it add 
greatly to the poetry of the locality. No part 
of the lake is more varied, or as a residence more 
interesting, affording as it does rare facilities for 
rowing, riding, and walking. From Bolton we 
look across by Dome Island into Sheldon Bay, 
which is overtopped by Pilot, Buck, and Erebus 
Mountains. 

The Huddle, which we can reach either by 
floating idly over the calm water to Basin Bay, 
or by an enchanting stroll through the woods, is 
a settlement that seems asleep under the influence 
of morphine. A matter of a dozen unpainted, 
rusty wooden houses, a grist-mill, a post-office, 
two stores, and a smithy, are grouped on each 
side of a dashing brook foaming down a steep 
hillside. Why it should be called the Huddle is 
perhaps not a question of pressing importance. 
The woodland nooks in this vicinity are at once 
picturesque and idyllic. 

Gliding across from Bolton, past Green Island, 
Tongue Mountain, and Fourteen-Mile Island, we 
come to Shelving Rock, a bold, precipitous slope, 
said to be infested with rattlesnakes, and adorned 
by a cascade. Several hotels are happily situated 
here, commanding at once a view of the broad 
southern division of Lake George just described, 
and overlooking the contracted second part of the 
lake, on which we enter after passing a barrier of 
islets which shut us in as with a hedge, and give 



LAKE GEORGE. 177 

to this portion of the lake an isolated aspect, as 
if it were a lake entirely by itself. Shut in at 
either end by islands, and narrowed to a moderate 
width by the approaching heights of Black and 
Tongue Mountains, the latter including the Twin 
Mountain and Deer's Leap, this is the most se- 
cluded division of the lake, and reminds one of 
the narrows of the Hudson. The lake is dotted 
here with the closely grouped and interlocked 
islets called the Harbor Islands. 

Near the foot of Black Mountain nestles Para- 
dise Bay, so completely hidden by overhanging 
woods that many would never suspect what beau- 
ty lies concealed there unless their attention were 
called to it. This is quite the loveliest spot in the 
whole of Lake George. Gliding under the over- 
arching festoons of maple, birch, and pine foliage, 
we enter into a crystalline basin, glassy and tran- 
quil as if never a breeze ruffled the surface, which 
is variegated like polished malachite with the 
wavy reflections of the green woods and islets. 
We float about the labyrinth of green, and of in- 
termingled shimmering light, shade, and color, as 
in a dream, so fairy-like and indefinite does it all 
seem ; for a small peninsula juts out in the center, 
so indented with scalloped coves as to confuse the 
outline, while minute tree-tufted islets are so in- 
terlocked that it is difficult to discover where one 
ends and the other begins. Such is the primitive 
quietude of this magical scene that the water-fowl 
12 



178 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

floating on the surface show no signs of alarm as 
our boat approaches, but only look at us with sur- 
prise that any one should intrude upon their green 
domain. Such is Paradise Bay. 

Stealing away with regret from this enchant- 
ing retreat, we thread the Harbor Islands, which 
were the scene of a terrible massacre in the colo- 
nial wars. On the 25th of July, 1757, Colonel 
Parker, with a detachment of four hundred men, 
bivouacked for the night on these islands, suppos- 
ing that amid their tangled, wooded mazes they 
would escape the eagle eyes of the Indian scouts. 
But he was fatally mistaken. Stealthy and inde- 
fatigable, the Mohawks had tracked the English, 
and fell upon them unawares in the gray of morn- 
ing with that whoop piercing the still air which 
has sent despair to so many hearts. Out of the 
four hundred English only twelve escaped. 

Having made the ascent of the commanding 
dome of Black Mountain, which is easily reached 
from this point by a road opened by Cyrus But- 
ler, Esq., we now approach Hulett's Landing, 
which is one of the prettiest spots on the lake. 
A number of ornate cottages, kiosks, and rustic 
bridges add to the attractions of this place. 

Sabbath-Day Point, opposite Hulett's Landing, 
marks the beginning of the third and last division 
of Lake George. Here the lake widens again, 
and the views from this point are of the most 
opposite character, and for poetic sentiment and 



LAKE GEORGE. 179 

artistic beauty are scarcely equaled by any other 
landscapes on the western side of the Atlantic. 

Looking south, we gaze down the narrows ; 
groups of islets tuft the water ; on the right the 
bold crags of the Twin Mountain are robed in 
green, over which flow the deep shadows of sun- 
set embroidered with the golden rays that steal 
through clefts in the ridge. On the opposite side 
Black Mountain soars with grand reserve toward 
the zenith, with a matchless majesty of outline, 
wrapping its slopes in a mantle of purple and 
flashing back the glory of evening from its thun- 
derous brow, above which the eagle soars alone, 
like the spirit of an Indian chieftain. 

But when we turn and gaze northward, the 
scene is changed. ISTo islands stud the broad, un- 
broken expanse, which stretches away before us 
miles and miles, and so ethereally blue that the 
heart throbs with joy to behold it. The fading 
horizon is inclosed with roseate elusive cliffs dip- 
ping so magically to meet the water that they 
seem to lose themselves in a delicate mirage. 
Here and there a snowy speck of a sail gleams 
like a star dropped from the sky. 

As we approach these highlands they resolve 
themselves into two headlands, of which the one 
on the right is Anthony's ]STose, at whose base one 
may look many fathoms down into the clear, sea- 
green flood. Opposite to Anthony's Nose rises 
Rogers's Rock, over six hundred feet high, iron-red, 



180 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

deeply grooved, and precipitous, and reminding 
us of an incident of the colonial wars, when the 
Indians pursued that gallant border soldier, Cap- 
tain Rogers, up to the summit of the cliff. It 
was in the winter season. Hurling his knapsack 
and gun down the side to the ice below, he re- 
versed his feet in the snow-shoes and stole back 
the way he came, and reappeared to the Indians, 
escaping across the frozen lake. They supposed 
he had slid unharmed down the precipice by the 
aid of the Great Spirit, and gave up the pursuit. 

Echo Bay, a charming wood-sheltered cove, is 
at the foot of the rock. From this spot, one of 
the most impressive and beautiful on Lake 
George, the lake gradually narrows, and finds an 
outlet two or three miles beyond, escaping by 
rapids so musical that the Indians called it Ticon- 
deroga and the French Carillon. The grass- 
grown lines, twice assaulted by the English, are 
still distinctly visible in the groves ; and a portion 
of the fortress of Ticonderoga, the scene of many 
interesting episodes in our colonial and revolu- 
tionary wars, yet remains on a commanding 
height overlooking Lake Champlain, the most 
picturesque ruin in the United States. 

I sometimes envy those who have not yet 
seen Lake George — to whom it is yet an unre- 
vealed rapture. There is a great joy in store for 
them ; and if they place themselves in a passive 
condition, and allow its various moods and attrac- 



THE BERMUDAS. 181 

tions to influence their souls, they will find that it 
will grow into their existence and become one of 
the dreams of a lifetime. 



THE BERMUDAS. 

And yet — ah ! there is always a yet in this 
unsatisfied nature of ours — my thoughts fly again 
to the sea, and my love for the fair things of this 
world craves once more the flavor and the free- 
dom of the salt waves, and the sight of isles of 
beauty looming above the ocean, and drawing the 
heart to them like the magnet of the Arabian 
tale. 

If, after roaming over the United States, we 
are next to visit islands, it is not inappropriate to 
go first six hundred and forty miles southwest of 
New York, to the " still vext Bermoothes." The 
epithet is a very happy one. Shakespeare, with 
the inspiration of genius, though he had never seen 
them, yet properly described them. In a milder 
form we there find a renewal of the climatic con- 
trasts and extremes of the neighboring continent ; 
an insular temperament at once fascinating and 
capricious. We find wind there in abundance, 
but not tempered by the equable regularity and 
healthf ulness of the trade-winds, but tending rath- 
er to storms and sudden squalls. They are never 



182 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

without a wind of some sort at Bermuda ; but 
as it always comes off the sea, it is on the whole 
not injurious to invalids, except to those who are 
rheumatic or in the later stages of consumption, 
to whom it is unsafe because the atmosphere is 
saturated with moisture that falls not so much 
in rain as by a perpetual dampness which takes 
the life even out of brimstone-matches. In sum- 
mer the heat, without being quite so extreme as 
in the United States, is still so continuous and ex- 
hausting as sometimes to be weakening to inva- 
lids, although agreeable to those in good health. 

The vegetation also resembles, on a reduced 
scale, that of the adjacent continent. Pines and 
cedars are the native woods, and potatoes, onions, 
and tomatoes the staple products. And yet, 
owing to the mildness of the air, the cocoa-palm, 
the India-rubber tree, and other exotics can be 
easily made to grow there ; while the arrowroot 
of the Bermudas is as good as that of the Sand- 
wich Islands. The oleander grows by the road- 
side in wonderful profusion ; the pepper-tree and 
the scarlet-blooming pomegranate nourish in the 
gardens ; the mangrove's tangled roots darken 
the coral caves of the island coves ; and the angel- 
fish, the silver-green, the parrot-fish, and the blue- 
fish are gorgeous with the brilliant crimson and 
azure colors of the tropics. The trees are full of 
singing birds ; one recognizes at morning and 
evening the catbird's rapturous warbling, and is 



THE BERMUDAS. 183 

dazzled by the vivid colors of the cardinal-bird 
darting in the darkling gloom of the groves. 

Yet we are nowhere oppressed with the pro- 
fuse splendor, the prodigal luxuriance of tropical 
scenery. Everywhere there is evidence of the 
strictest economy even on the part of nature, and 
an harmonious effort, with moderate resources, so 
to combine all the features of the landscape as 
to produce the effect of the most admirable art. 
Without any collusion, man and nature have 
united to achieve this laudable result, and the 
consequence is, that I know of no spot on the 
globe where so much has been made out of so 
little. 

There are not above thirteen thousand acres 
in the whole group, yet they have been so cut up 
into hundreds of islets, which are more or less 
joined by dikes or coral bars gradually uniting 
many of them, and they are so indented with in- 
numerable coves and bays, that one may ride con- 
tinuously from St. George to Ireland Island, some 
sixteen miles, while there are actually three hun- 
dred miles of excellent roadways in the Bermu- 
das ! They were cut in the coral rock by con- 
victs ; otherwise they might never have been 
made ! 

Then, again, with consummate artifice, Nature 
has contrived to throw up a low hill in one spot, 
or scoop out a valley at the next turn of the road, 
giving to these low isles the impression of a roll- 



184 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

ing country of large extent, and sometimes within 
pistol-shot of the sea one may imagine himself in 
an inland country. 

The coral formation of these islands is an- 
other mystifying fact. Why, inquires one, should 
we find islands still actually growing out of coral 
almost at our very doors — when, too, the northern 
cedar crests the hills ? "We can only say it is a 
freak of nature, and that no other coral island 
exists so far north. And nowhere else, in this 
latitude, except around the Italian shores, do we 
find such vivid and exquisite blues, greens, and 
purples in the hues of the sea, although common 
enough farther south, especially when the adja- 
cent shores are coralline. Thus we discover that 
the Bermudas present a most rare, capricious, and 
diverse but delightful combination of attractions 
to the invalid, the artist, or the naturalist, or your 
mere idle seeker after pleasure. 

It is with a feeling akin to wonder that I look 
back to Bermudan days, and think how simple 
may be the elements which make up the sum of 
human happiness. Often they are wholly nega- 
tive. Freedom from physical discomfort or pain, 
or from mental worry, constitutes the most per- 
fect form of happiness in this world. Once we 
begin to add to it a positive, an active character 
— once we begin to love, to yearn, to seek after — 
we taste sorrow and find what a bitter possession 
life may be. 



THE BERMUDAS. 185 

Hamilton and St. George are the towns of 
Bermuda. The latter is a sleepy, unattractive 
place with a garrison and a fort. The former is 
a charming village, surrounded by delicious rose- 
covered country-seats, and a semblance of activ- 
ity about its wharves that seems to suggest thrift. 
Hamilton is reached by a most intricate channel 
among the islands, after entering the large bay 
inside of the vast coral reef that subtends on the 
north the arc made by the curved line formed by 
the islands. A curious effect is given to the 
houses peeping above the shrubbery by the daz- 
zling whiteness of the roofs. It seems that, as 
there is no water to be obtained by digging wells, 
the people must depend upon the bounty of 
Heaven dropping directly from the sky ; thus all 
the rainfall on the roofs, which are covered with 
flat slabs and white cement, is caught and con- 
ducted into cisterns. 

There are several places of especial interest 
in Bermuda ; although, for that matter, is it not 
true that, given a certain type of scenery, one 
who keeps his eyes open and can perceive the 
subtile suggestions of quiet effects no less than 
those that are more obvious and notable, will 
find something to interest and stimulate the fancy 
whichever way he turns ? One of the spots to 
which I allude is Harrington Sound, a beautiful 
sheet of water, whose coral bottom colors it an 
exquisite pale green. The low, overhanging cliffs 



186 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

are honeycombed with caves, and the Flatts vil- 
lage, near the narrow outlet to the ocean, is a 
charming retreat on a warm day. 

Not far off, in a retired nook on the edge 
of a mangrove pool, is the house in which Tom 
Moore lived when he was connected with the 
Admiralty Court of Bermuda. It is difficult to 
imagine how this frivolous bard was able to live 
contentedly in these isolated isles. His element 
was the fashionable drawing-room of London 
during the season, and there is no evidence that 
he wasted much enthusiasm over the Bermudas 
or its people, for, although as soon as he landed 
he began to scribble amatory verses under a 
scraggy calabash-tree which is still standing, and 
professed to love somebody on the islands very 
heartily, he on the other hand applied certain de- 
scriptive epithets to his neighbors which are not 
more than half true, and are certainly not compli- 
mentary. 

Captain John Smith, who was by nature far 
more of a rover than Moore, spoke of these isles 
in terms of eulogy so lofty as almost to make one 
doubt either his judgment or his veracity. The 
people are agreeable and hospitable, and seem to 
exert themselves to extract the best results out of 
narrow circumstances. Having no game to hunt, 
they organize furious paper-hunts, or steeple-chases 
after an imaginary trail marked out by bits of 
paper strewed deviously over road and field, and 



THE BERMUDAS. 187 

leading up in the most intricate manner to a gen- 
eral rendezvous, where a dinner is served to the 
wearied hunters. 

Then, too, there is a yacht club patronized by- 
half a score of gentlemen with long titles — really 
a very enterprising association, whose races are 
full of fun and excitement. The yachts, built of 
cedar, of a model and rig peculiar to the Ber- 
mudas, are very rakish, saucy-looking craft, and 
go to windward with remarkable ability. They 
carry a leg-of-mutton mainsail and a jib, and in 
the races spread a preposterous amount of canvas. 

Those who are interested in naval matters can 
find a morning pass very pleasantly at the dock- 
yards and arsenal at Ireland Island. The famous 
floating-dock which was towed from England is 
also there, and well worthy a visit, especially if 
some mighty ironclad is undergoing repairs within 
its tremendous walls. 

But the most beautiful and attractive spot in 
Bermuda is what is most appropriately called 
Fairyland. There, among the intricacies of wind- 
ing coves, a labyrinth of islets are clustered, form- 
ing a mimic Venice. The far spreading, densely 
intertwining roots of the mangrove darken the 
shores, and, while the waters may be elsewhere 
disturbed by the winds, there all is quietude and 
peace. To float through Fairyland in the argent 
light of the moon, with music and fair company, is 
to eat the lotus and dream that one is in paradise. 



188 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 



TENERIFFE. 

Eastward once more we turn the prow, to 
search for paradises that are easily accessible to 
such as wish to find a respite from the vexation, 
or the care, or the bad climate of our country, 
and desire a temperature more equable and less 
boisterous than that of Bermuda. There is "a 
mountain islet pointed and peaked" near the 
coast of Africa, in the east Atlantic. It is one 
of the Hesperides, one of the Fortunate Isles, and 
he who has seen it is fortunate among men. The 
islanders of other days, those Guanches who once 
dwelt there, but whose bones only remain in the 
caves of the island — a noble, simple, manly, he- 
roic, and, alas ! an extinct race — called their mag- 
nificent island Thener-if e, the White Mountain ; 
and so to this day it goes by the name of Tene- 
riffe ; for the vast volcano is yet there, with its 
hoary peak supporting the stars. 

At Bermuda and the Bahamas we found a 
coral formation, but Teneriffe is altogether igne- 
ous. Its tremendous cliffs and sharply serrated 
ridges are warm in tone and savage in form, 
wrinkled and scarred by the fury of the fiery 
trial that formed them ages ago. The adjacent 
isles of the Canaries lie around Teneriffe as if it 
were their leader ; and westerly of the center 
soars the Peak, while the island tapers off at the 



TENERIFFE. 189 

east end to the lofty and desolate promontory 
called Anaga Point. A central range bisects the 
isle, and the city of Santa Cruz lies at its feet on 
the southern side, bathed by the foam of the 
trade-wind. There dwell the garrison and the 
Governor ; there are the hotels ; and for seven 
months, from October to May, the air of the 
place is like balm, and from the flat house-tops 
one gazes over the sea, and enjoys the fragrant 
breeze that waves the plumage of the palms. 

Under the silvery haze of the moon the lover 
thrums his guitar, or breathes the universal lan- 
guage that all understand, to the dark-eyed senorita 
who leans her round arm on her window-sill, and 
half arrests the fluttering of her fan to catch the 
utterances of his burning heart. The perfume of 
the jasmine and the rose steals by like the breath 
of an unseen spirit ; and as the night wears on 
the sereno — so they call the night watchman — 
takes up the cry, and in long, musical notes 
soothes you to slumber with the assurance that 
all is well. 

At morning, in answer to the tinkle of the 
bell, a waiter brings to your bedside spiced choco- 
late in a silver cup. Then you rise, and, leaning 
against the railing under the awning that shades 
your balcony, you may, if so minded, and are not 
undevotional in your aspirations, look on the tall, 
slender senoras passing by to mass at the cathe- 
dral, the lace mantilla thrown over their black 



190 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

tresses and gracefully drooping over the exqui- 
site shoulders. But this is a dangerous indul- 
gence to one who is not piously inclined. 

The ways of love are thorny in Teneriffe — so 
difficult, indeed, that one may well wonder how 
any one can ever be married there. Every one is 
a self-constituted spy, and every woman who is 
not old and ugly as Hecate is watched as if she 
wished to run away with somebody, as I doubt 
not many of them would like to do just because 
of the perverseness which makes restraint galling 
and intolerable. I remember a lithe, graceful, 
handsome young girl of sixteen, and of wealthy 
parentage, who was staying at the hotel ; she 
never stepped foot outside of her room, even for 
the mere purpose of promenading in the veranda, 
but what she was followed like a shadow by her 
grandmother or her mother, or even her father. 
And, if she had dared to walk forth alone into the 
street, she would have been accosted and insulted 
by some rascal in fine clothes ; for it is assumed 
in Spanish lands that only an immodest woman 
walks the streets alone. Incredible as it may 
seem, even the courtesans do not go out unless 
accompanied by some old crone ! The glorious 
freedom and independence of women in our coun- 
try is little understood in the Latin lands, where 
woman is always treated as if she had no innate 
sense of virtue to protect her from the snares of 
society. 



TEXEMFFE. 191 

In Teneriffe a gentleman may not converse 
alone with a lady unless he is her brother, son, 
father, or husband, except when they are sepa- 
rated by a wall, she on one side of a window, and 
he of course on the other side in the street ! I 
never could by any means learn that the peo- 
ple are a whit more virtuous, for all this jealous 
care, than in lands where more liberty is allowed ; 
in fact, I think they are rather less pure. Offers 
of marriage are made invariably through the in- 
tervention of third parties, unless perhaps when 
the ladies walk on the plaza in the evening, if 
opportunity should offer. On such occasions, if 
a gentleman has a sister or a cousin who feels 
kindly toward his suit, she may contrive to have 
his lady-love walk at her side, and thus, while he 
is ostensibly escorting his sister, he may seize a 
golden moment to utter his love. A gentleman 
moving in the best society told me that he had 
been waiting for such an opportunity over six 
months, and still had it to hope for. 

But there are other places and scenes in Ten- 
eriffe, besides the piquant little city of Santa Cruz, 
that are well qualified to attract the visitor to that 
island. Indeed, if one finds Santa Cruz charming, 
what will he say when he comes to Laguna, Icod, 
and, especially, Orotava — a name I can never pro- 
nounce without a thrill of rapture ? 

I started for the valley of Orotava in a carriage, 
and followed a fine, broad, zigzag-road up the 



192 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

mountain-side until we came to Laguna. Soporific 
is a mild word to apply to this town ; the very 
houses are steeped in slumber, the grass grows in 
the streets, the houseleek clambers over the roofs 
and casements, and the armorial bearings are 
crumbling over many a stately gateway of noble 
families gone to decay. Here and there an old ser- 
vitor, or a wrinkled priest in black cassock, or an 
indolent camel wandering with leisurely and noise- 
less pace through the streets, indicates that there 
is still the breath of life in the musty dwellings of 
the old-time capital of Teneriffe. 

Thence we passed to the thatched peasant-huts 
of Matanzas, which derives its name from the sig- 
nal defeat that Alonzo de Lugo encountered at the 
hands of the primitive inhabitants, the Guanches. 
At a time when the Spaniards were trying to gain 
a foothold on the island, the Guanches, simple 
pastoral people as they were, were yet able to 
slaughter six hundred out of the thousand Span- 
iards they attacked on that day, and the follow- 
ing day slew three hundred more. But the old 
story of civilization and barbarism was repeated 
here. Bringing reinforcements to their aid, the 
invaders ultimately subjugated and exterminated 
the brave Guanches. 

A curious people were these primitive island- 
ers, whose life and code reminded one of the old 
legends about the golden age. Divided into six 
tribes, to whose origin we have no clew, they dwelt 



TENERIFFE. 193 

harmoniously within the narrow bounds that the 
ocean had set for them. They had no boats nor 
ships ; they knew not nor cared not for other 
lands ; their possessions consisted of flocks, and 
they lived on milk and corn. Crime was never 
punished with death ; indeed, innocence seems to 
have been a characteristic of their simple life. 
The severest penalty known among them was to 
degrade those who belonged to a class of chiefs 
to that of the peasantry. They dwelt largely in 
the numerous caves of the cliffs formed by the cool- 
ing of the lava. The absolute perfection of the cli- 
mate deprived these caverns of humidity ; and as 
a chief sat at the entrance of his rock- dwelling at 
the evening hour, surrounded by his children and 
attendants, he looked forth on one of the most 
magnificent prospects on the globe. When they 
died, the Guanches were embalmed and laid in 
caves which looked over the surf that beat far be- 
low. Sometimes the mummies were lowered by 
ropes from the top of the precipice ; sometimes, 
through long, winding, and dark subterranean 
passages, they were carried by the light of glim- 
mering torches to their last abode. At Icod I fol- 
lowed the windings of such a cave for a third of 
a mile, often stooping low, until I came to a cav- 
ern-hall directly over the ocean ; and there, on 
ledges around this natural mausoleum, I saw the 
bones of the Guanches. 

But when I came to a place in the road where 
13 



194 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

the valley of Orotava lay spread before rue, it 
marked an era of my life. For years I had been 
fired by the glowing description of Humboldt, 
who declared that in his travels he had seen no 
landscape which combined to such a degree the 
sublime and the beautiful. For years I had longed 
to visit this enchanted spot, and an imaginary 
picture of it was ever floating before my eyes. 
It was, therefore, not without emotion that I now 
looked upon it for the first time. That I failed 
wholly to appreciate it at once was owing to this 
circumstance, and not to any defect in the pros- 
pect before me. Like all other objects of the 
highest order of excellence, the full glory of this 
valley was not revealed at a glance. A long ac- 
quaintance with it, a familiarity with its various 
aspects, is essential before one can fully appreciate 
the vastness of its attractions. In the presence of 
a great work of nature or of art, one needs to grow 
up to the measure of its grandeur. 

The valley of Orotava is not so much a valley 
as a slope descending by easy gradation to the 
sea. It is inclosed on three sides by mountain - 
ridges and cloven in the center by a ravine. Its 
upper heights are clothed with chestnut-forests, 
and it wears on its bosom that quaint and lovely 
city of Orotava, where on festal days the ladies 
spread the streets with carpets of flowers in elab- 
orate and beautiful patterns, where the surf and 
trade- wiuds beat evermore on the slag of the shore, 



TENERIFFE. 195 

where the ships ride exposed to the full brunt of 
the ocean and fear no gales. There cluster the 
old convents and Oriental-like mansions of the. 
gentry. 

Beyond this town, westward, is the romantic 
village of Realejo, whose church has a cedar ceil- 
ing, which is a very delicate piece of carving. 
Above the valley of Orotava soars the famed 
Peak of Teneriffe to the height of nearly thirteen 
thousand feet. Every feature of this landscape 
is on a grand scale, all the lines harmoniously 
converging to produce completeness of effect. 
Everything seems simple enough at first, but the 
majesty of the scene increases with every day 
that one renews his observation. 

I ascended the Peak. Everybody who goes to 
Teneriffe is expected to go up the Peak, but very 
few do, and I was the first who attempted it that 
season. The mules of Teneriffe have a very bad 
reputation, and it is certain that the animal that 
carried me up to within two thousand feet of the 
summit was by far the most evil-minded mule on 
the island. He seemed to kick twice for every 
step he took in advance ; and that my neck was 
not broken when we descended some of the tre- 
mendous precipices of Tigayga, one of the main 
buttresses of the mountain, will always remain to 
me an unsolved mystery. 

Nearly eight thousand feet above the sea is a 
crater thirty miles in circumference, whose purple 



196 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

cliffs are two thousand feet high. Across the 
glaring pumice-stone that forms the floor of the 
crater we staggered under the terrific heat of the 
sun to the great lava-ribbed dome which soars 
four thousand feet higher. Fifteen hundred feet 
from the summit we spent the night on a two-acre 
plateau. The surliness of the guides was of a 
peculiarly exasperating character ; and the fury 
of the wind, that rose after the gigantic shadow 
of the mountain on the sea was lost in the shades 
of night, was of the most boisterous and uncom- 
promising character. The sense of isolation and 
solitude, with no sign of life apparent but the 
twinkle of the cold stars overhead, was something 
that weighed on the soul like a great and name- 
less presentiment. Stumbling by the light of a 
dim lantern, at three in the morning, over the 
rugged, hummock-like piles of lava-blocks called 
the Malpays, we came at dawn to the second cra- 
ter, and began the ascent of the Piton. It is a 
pyramid of pumice-stone over six hundred feet 
high, terminating in a crater about seventy yards 
in diameter. The fumes of sulphur which issued 
from the fissures almost suffocated me. The stones 
around the rim of the crater, which were yellow 
with the flowers of sulphur, were hot to the touch. 
It is useless to describe the sublimity of a pros- 
pect that includes within its scope a circumfer- 
ence of over nine hundred miles of the earth's 
surface, or the imposing beauty of the island be- 



TENERIFFE. 197 

low, canopied by the perpetual strata of the trade- 
wind clouds. It is one of those scenes that im- 
press themselves on the memory for ever, while to 
describe it to one who has never seen it, with any 
hope of conveying a clear conception of it, is im- 
possible. 

The last time I saw the Peak of Teneriffe, the 
sun was declining in the west. Slowly the shad- 
ows crept up the mighty slopes of Orotava. A 
robe of purple mantled the Peak, and above 
gleamed its snowy point like a star in the firma- 
ment. The hollow chant of the sea floated by on 
the evening air. An old man of eighty sat on 
the beach, and held in his withered arms an infant 
of a day ; and I thought to myself : Ages after 
they are both gone, the wreaths of vapor will still 
ascend from yonder peak ; and yet one can say : 
" What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, or 
the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? Thou 
hast made him a little lower than the angels, and 
hast crowned him with glory and honor." 

But one can not always dwell on the heights of 
exaltation, and, when the imagination wearies of 
the grander aspects of nature, what an infinite 
charm there is in its minor details of climate or 
vegetation ! The fragrance of the fig-trees of 
Orotava seemed to make the air heavy ; and the 
delicious warbling of the capirote, nestling at noon- 
day in the dark shade of the broad leaves, was 
wonderfully sweet and inspiring. As for the 



198 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

climate, it is of a nature to make the simple mat- 
ter of existence a luxury. For six weeks I saw 
the glass vary only four degrees day or night, 
while the atmosphere is of exactly that just me- 
dium between dryness and humidity which is 
fitted to those afflicted with pulmonary or neu- 
ralgic and rheumatic complaints. The steadiness 
of the trade-winds gives a permanence to the 
weather in summer as well as in winter ; and the 
climate of the valley of Orotava is justly con- 
sidered by scientists to be the finest in the world. 



MADEIRA. 



After the valley of Orotava, can there be 
scenery to compare with it, or to attract one like 
that ? I think it is quite likely that there is no 
other single landscape equal to that happy valley ; 
but there is an island three hundred miles away 
that, as a whole, is the peer of Teneriffe, offering 
within a smaller compass a larger variety of sce- 
nery, and possessing a climate that is scarcely 
less lovely and healthful. I refer to the island 
of Madeira. 

I well remember my first arrival at Funchal, 
the capital. A great headland had concealed the 
city from our view until after nightfall. As the 
ship entered the port, nothing was visible but the 



MADEIRA. 199 

dark, vague mass of the island heaving up against 
the sky. The position of the town was suggested 
by the rows of street-lights straggling up the 
mountain-side. The deep shadow of the island 
was like the gloom of a darker night thrown 
across the water, over whose tranquil surface 
floated the strains of music. All was indefinite 
and mysterious, and of a nature to whet the curi- 
osity and stimulate the imagination. Gradually 
the music died away, one by one the lights of the 
city were extinguished, and all was silence and 
gloom, broken only by the dull, everlasting un- 
dertone of the surf, and the flash of a meteor 
darting at intervals across the zenith, and, with a 
reflection, rending the tranquil surface of the sea 
with a quivering line of fire. 

I sat up all night, and as dawn deepened into 
day the island and city were gradually revealed, 
like a truth long sought that becomes clear when 
the light of experience enables us to perceive the 
relations of things ; and the jangle of the cathe- 
dral-bells stole across the sea like a welcome to 
the fairest paradise that man has seen since our 
first ancestors went forth from Eden. 

When Queen Isabella asked Columbus to de- 
scribe Jamaica, he took a piece of paper and 
crushed it to a thousand wrinkles in his hand. 
But if such was a fair description of the topog- 
raphy of that noble island, how much more does 
it apply to Madeira, which, within the space of 



200 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

thirty miles in length by nine in width, has along 
its coast precipices over which the cataract pours 
its silver thread more than two thousand vertical 
feet before it mingles with the ocean below ; 
while in the center, sculptured into many-colored 
Titanic bastions and towers, the mountains rise 
abruptly over six thousand feet, and the peaks 
are cloven apart by gorges four thousand feet in 
depth ! The island is one stupendous corruga- 
tion, but between its numberless peaks and ra- 
vines includes plateaus and valleys, forests and 
meadow-lands, gardens of matchless splendor, 
vineyards, and streams. Grandeur and loveliness 
here go hand in hand, and the lavish profusion 
of flowers beggars all description. I have seen 
the roadside for miles on either hand hedged in 
by wild fuchsias or geraniums. Where I lived, 
the terrace- wall to a height of nearly fifteen feet 
was completely hidden by a mass of white and 
red double geraniums, growing as vines, and 
mingling in their exuberant abundance like a 
white and scarlet fire. The roads are sometimes 
actually over-canopied by the pink brachts of the 
bougainvillia. The strawberries are ripe from 
March until September ; the banner-like stalks of 
the banana are freighted with fruit for half the 
year ; the nectarine and the fig seem always ready 
to be plucked ; and the chestnut-forests are weight- 
ed with verdure from January to December. 

Nor, with all this perennial profusion of na- 



MADEIRA. 201 

ture, and this blending of the plants of two zones, 
is the heat of the climate excessive. It has an 
equability resembling the serene and sublime rest- 
fulness of the Buddhist's Nirvana. On the mag- 
nificent plateau of Santa Anna, one thousand feet 
above the sea, the mercury for forty years fell 
not below 60° nor rose above 80° of Fahren- 
heit ; while the dryness and humidity of the at- 
mosphere are so justly proportioned as to pro- 
duce no sensation of excess in either case. In 
the city of Funchal, during the summer, the heat 
reaches 85° ; but one can reduce it at any time 
by going up to the villas a few hundred feet up 
the mountain-sides ; while at the village of Cania- 
cha, some three thousand feet above the sea, a 
genial average of 65° may be enjoyed for six 
months, surrounded by forest, ravine, and stream, 
and gazing on the sapphire expanse of the ocean 
spreading and vanishing toward the south pole. 

The northeast trades blow with unfailing reg- 
ularity at Madeira, being the great equalizer of 
the temperature ; but it is singular that, owing 
to the height of the island, these winds are little 
felt on the south side, where every morning a 
light southerly breeze arises, extending not more 
than three or four miles from the land. This pro- 
duces a remarkable effect of clouds, which is 
probably not paralleled anywhere else in the 
world except at the Isle of Mauritius. It is seen 
at the wild pass of the Serra d'Agoa, beyond the 



202 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

tremendous abyss of the Grand Corral, where one 
gazes on scenes of sublimity rivaling those of the 
Yosemite. The hour when the spectacle can be 
observed to most advantage is toward evening, 
when the sun is low. Blown by the trade-winds 
against the mountain-sides, the clouds in vast, 
rolling billows are dashed against the crags ; 
seeking for a vent, like the undertow of surf, 
they shoot upward with great velocity, until they 
are smitten by the red rays of the sun and look 
like masses of flames. But when they reach that 
height they strike against the counter-current of 
the southerly breeze, which in turn dashes them 
back against the fury of the trade-winds. Be- 
tween the two aerial forces the clouds are driven 
upward with lightning velocity, and are instan- 
taneously dissipated in the dark blue of the 
zenith. Thus, month after month, goes on this 
warfare of the clouds, wonderful, terrible, and 
glorious, like a vision of the Apocalypse, or like 
the pageant of a dream, for without a sound this 
pomp and movement of masses passes before the 
eyes of the beholder. 

Life is what one would suppose amid such 
scenery and in such a climate. The labor of ter- 
racing, irrigating, and cultivating the steep moun- 
tain-sides is enormous, but the simple peasantry 
go forth from their thatched flower-tapestried 
huts to their daily toil of climbing great heights, 
or bearing heavy loads on their heads, with cheer- 



MADEIRA. 203 

ful hearts and songs that, if not strictly musical, 
indicate that the cares of existence weigh not 
heavily upon them. The question of morals is 
not oppressively felt — its code is not severe, and 
crimes of magnitude are rare. The duties of re- 
ligion are easily and pleasantly discharged by a 
careful observance of the festivities of holy days. 
The dance and the guitar are scarcely less influen- 
tial than the mass and the vespers, and the ghostly 
guides of the people err not by overmuch auster- 
ity. One of the most skillful croquet-players it 
has been my fortune to encounter was a handsome 
young priest of one of the country parishes, who 
handled a mallet with as much zeal as if he were 
converting the world. 

The gentry have a pleasant custom of cele- 
brating their birthdays with showers of rockets, 
and every parish church has also the annual fete 
of its tutelary saint, called a ?iovana ) because it 
lasts nine days. The building is ornamented for 
the occasion with bowers, banners, and floral dec- 
orations, and rockets are sent up by the score at 
all hours. Rocket-firing seems to be the favorite 
sport of the easy-going people of Madeira. 

Portuguese by descent, these islanders com- 
bine the qualities of the Spaniards and the French 
— not inferior to either in nerve or intelligence, 
but with more amiability and kindliness. Their 
hospitality and politeness seem to spring from the 
heart, and carry the evidence of sincerity. 



204 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

I remember one day, when I was crossing the 
island in a hammock, ascending the steep road 
that led up from the wonderful valley of Porto da 
Cruz, reposing at the feet of the great rock of 
Penha d'Aguia, we came to a halt at a little 
open, where there was a stately grove of stone- 
pines murmuring on the brow of the precipice, 
and a noble villa perched where the ocean seemed 
to beat under it two thousand feet below. The 
proprietor was seated in the shade of his piazza, 
taking his ease and gazing tranquilly upon the en- 
chanting prospect. But when the panting ham- 
mock-bearers stopped to rest, he arose, and, com- 
ing toward me, an entire stranger, bade me wel- 
come, and with easy urbanity invited me to enter 
his house and take some refreshments. To decline 
would have been an insult ; I accepted the invi- 
tation in the spirit in which it was given, and in 
a few moments we were chatting over a collation 
of fruits and confections, and a bottle of Madei- 
ra's choicest wine. 

To these hammock-bearers of whom I spoke, 
I owe many of my pleasantest hours in the island. 
Where it was difficult or dangerous to proceed on 
horseback, they carried me with safety and comfort ; 
they endured the most arduous toil with cheerful- 
ness, and a simple mirth that almost made one for- 
get what a labor it must be to travel some twenty 
miles a day over mountains four thousand feet 
high, carrying a heavy weight on their shoulders. 



MADEIRA. 205 

The bawling boatmen, bare to the hips, drag- 
ging their boats up the steeply shelving beach, 
through the surf, I also found an amusing class ; 
and even more entertaining were the grooms who 
followed the horses. There are no steeper roads 
than some of those zigzag mountain-paths of Ma- 
deira, often hewn out of the solid rock by blast- 
ing, sometimes but five or six feet wide, and with- 
out the slightest protection, skirting the sides of 
tremendous precipices overhanging ocean and ra- 
vine, where a misstep would hurl one hundreds of 
feet through the air. But I never doubted my 
stout gray steed, even in spots where it was not 
uncommon for travelers to prefer trusting to their 
own feet. Mounted on horseback, one seems more 
fully to realize the grandeur and giddiness of 
climbing or descending a great height, where the 
waterfall plunges over the road from vast preci- 
pices above, while one divides his attention be- 
tween the thought of how he should land on the 
rocky shore or the thatched roof of the hut many 
hundred feet below, supposing the horse should 
stumble, and the glamour of the bright eyes that 
startle him gazing through the trellis of a terrace 
overlooking the road. 

At such times what most astonished me was 
the vast endurance of Manoel, my attendant. 
One thousand, two thousand, three, and even 
four and five thousand feet upward, he followed 
the horse apparently with less fatigue of lungs 



206 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

than the animal, actually urging him forward up 
the rapid ascent as if we were traveling on level 
ground. Down those inclines I sometimes de- 
scended by sledge over a smooth pavement. The 
car was guided by thongs held by men shod in 
felt, who stood on the rear end of the runners. 
I have thus traversed a distance of two miles from 
the Church of Nostra Senhora del Monte to Fun- 
chal, and a descent of twenty-two hundred feet, 
in seven minutes. 

As one looks back over the days so easily 
passed in Madeira, he is at a loss to fix on any 
one spot which seemed the most attractive, where 
all was so beautiful. When in the valley of Sao 
Vincente, in itself a paradise, musical with streams, 
surrounded and shut in from the world by the 
walls of bastioned precipices, and opening on the 
ocean by a mighty gateway cloven by Nature 
through the cliffs, then he thinks such another 
landscape, such another happy valley, is not found 
otherwhere. At Ponta Delgada the vineyards 
and the sea, at Porto da Cruz the stately moun- 
tains and the sumptuous dales embraced by the 
ocean, content the soul ; while a night in the old 
convent at Calheta makes one say to himself : 
" Why, being here at last, should I roam forth 
again and battle with a thankless world ? Enough ! 
to know when one is well off is the sum of happi- 
ness." 

But perhaps the idyllic valley of Machico won 



MADEIRA. 207 

my allegiance more than these, with its miniature 
fishing-port, guarded by mighty cliffs and an old 
turreted fort, mounted with old-time guns across 
whose antique muzzles the spider hath woven her 
web. Gradually the bright-green slope inclosed by 
mountains rises gently from the water to a villa 
and a dismantled convent in the background pic- 
turesquely situated and commanding the lands- 
cape. The element of humanity, of tragedy, of 
legend, has thrown a peculiar interest over this 
vale of Machico. As the story runs (a story 
mainly true), this is the place where the first land- 
ing was made on this island, at least so far as the 
memory of man has recorded. 

Flying with Robert Macham, her lover, four 
centuries ago, from a husband in Devonshire, 
whom she had been forced to marry against her 
will, and driven by violent gales for weeks on the 
boisterous Atlantic, Anna d'Arfet at last saw the 
mountains of an unknown isle loom up before her 
wearied eyes. At Machico, named after her lover, 
she stepped foot on shore, but, exhausted by anx- 
iety and fatigue, died three days after. Macham 
soon followed her, and they were buried side by 
side in this valley. A small chapel which still 
stands near the water, surrounded by a pretty 
hamlet, is said to be built over their grave. 

A tragedy not unlike this, but even wilder and 
sadder, happened in Madeira not so many years 
ago, which made a yet deeper impression upon me, 



208 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

because life there is so generally even and un- 
eventful. The gentleman who had purchased the 
mansion of the lady of the story, invited me to 
dine at his house. In her day of prosperity, seat- 
ed under the choice exotics of the terraces, she 
too had enjoyed the view spread before us, and 
sat at the same table where we sat, while my host 
repeated to me the romance of her life. 

She was married to a husband many years her 
senior, who had, however, won the respect if not 
the affection of his wife, and they had one child, 
a daughter. About that time there came to the 
island a Brazilian frigate ; the officers were re- 
ceived with the greatest hospitality by the good 
people of Funchal, and balls and fetes followed in 
rapid succession. 

The commander of the frigate was a French- 
man, who, for political reasons, had been obliged 
to fly his country. He was a man of fascinating 
manners, great personal attractions, aud a magnet- 
ism that made him highly dangerous to the sex. 
How many hearts he broke while the frigate was 
lying in the roads of Funchal the record saith 
not. But one conquest he made that boded no 
good. The lady of whom I sj^eak met him at a 
ball. The lights, the music, the brilliance of his 
uniform, the glamour of his station, the subtile 
power of his conversation, told with fatal effect on 
the infatuated young wife, herself one of the 
most lovely and voluptuous beauties in Madeira. 



MADEIRA. 209 

In a few days the frigate was to sail, but ere 
that hour had arrived the French captain won the 
lady's consent to leave her child and her home 
and to fly with him across the sea. The fatal 
night arrived. Not without a struggle did the 
victim of a cruel passion forsake for ever the 
home of her childhood and the infant in the cra- 
dle ; but she was driven to her fate by an emo- 
tion akin to madness. The frigate's boat was 
waiting at the beach ; impatiently the captain 
peered through the darkness for the woman whom 
he was to steal away to perdition ; the frigate 
was champing at her anchor, and the land-breeze 
proclaimed that the hour to sail had come. A 
dark shadow in a dark night, she came at last, 
muffled and trembling. Hurriedly the boat was 
pushed off with its awful freight of despair, and 
soon shot alongside of the frigate. As the lady 
and her lover stepped on deck the shrill whistle of 
the boatswain rang piercingly through the ship, 
the topsails were sheeted home, and, swinging off 
from her anchorage like a great ghost against the 
gloom, the mighty fabric glided away from the 
island. 

The die was cast ; never more could the lady 
return. The past was irrevocable, and all she now 
had was the future. The captain led her down 
the companion-way to the cabin, which she now 
considered her home ; whatever she had lost for 
ever, his heart at least was hers, a heart for which 
14 



210 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

she had sacrificed so much. How grateful, how 
lasting, how entirely her own would be his love ! 
In this mood, and buoyed by the excitement of 
the hour, the lady reached the cabin, and there a 
secret was revealed to her with the vividness of an 
abyss over whose edge one poises, on a dark night, 
when a flash of lightning bares its appalling 
depths to the gaze just as he takes the irretriev- 
able step. The lady found herself face to face 
with the mistress of the fiend who had betrayed 
her, beautiful and terrible as a tigress, when she 
also learned that this man had brought a rival on 
board to supplant her. But one has ever lived 
who could justly portray the anguish of the scene 
that followed — the rage, the jealousy, the hate, the 
remorse, and the despair — he who immortalized 
the last agony of Othello. 

" Let us take our coffee in the garden," said 
mine host. The coral-tree under which she had 
sat hung its red bulbs over our heads, like the 
gems of a fairy bower ; but as we gazed on the 
city below and the conversation took another turn, 
I still thought to myself, " Will her spirit never 
come back to haunt her olden bowers and lament 
over the innocence of her lost childhood ? " 

And now for Camacha ! Manoel led the gray 
horse to the gate, and we climbed to the village, 
where I passed my pleasantest days in Madeira. 
The dew-moistened camellia-trees, drooping with 
white flowers as if with snow, steeped in the yel- 



MADEIRA. 211 

low light of the full moon rising above the ocean, 
the gray mist in the forests and gorges below ; 
the mystery of shadows, the silence of night, the 
fragrance of gardens, lading the slumberous air 
with perfume — not once, nor twice, but many 
times did I gather a rapturous delight from the 
solemn glory of such nights at Camacha. 

But there was one walk at sunset that exceed- 
ed all others in this Eden of enchantment. It 
led to a depression between the hills, which was 
covered with the dense growth of an ancient 
chestnut-forest. The superb masses of verdure 
were beyond compare. Underneath one walked 
in a cool and emerald gloom, as in a vast temple. 
Venerable trunks like pillars supported the leafy 
roof, and in the vista between them the ethereal 
azure of the ocean was seen, and the roseate mists 
of evening trailing over it like a procession of 
naiads. The splendor of the setting sun crept in 
here and there under the forest, strewing the 
mossy floor and the stems of the trees with 
specks of gold, and suffusing the tree-tops with 
a purple tint like the atmosphere of love. Pri- 
meval quietude and peace reigned throughout the 
serene and majestic glory of the scene. They 
call this place Valparaiso — the Vale of Paradise. 



212 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

It is a long way from the Fortunate Isles of 
the Atlantic to the Hesperides of the Pacific, but 
with modern means of locomotion one may soon 
make the journey. The Sandwich Islands lie 
twenty degrees north of the line, about 2,000 
miles from San Francisco, from which port they 
may be reached in about eight days, by a steamer 
which plies monthly to these islands. 

The points of resemblance between the Cana- 
ries and the Sandwich Islands are quite striking. 
They are both wholly volcanic in origin; the soil 
is similar; and the coast-line is often exceeding- 
ly abrupt, terminating in tremendous precipices 
sometimes extending for miles. Both have a cli- 
mate of extraordinary equability, and are alike 
fanned by the beneficent airs of the trade winds ; 
and both, when discovered by Europeans, were 
inhabited by primitive races, of which one has 
become extinct and the other has been rapidly ap- 
proaching the same fate until recently. Each 
also adopted the religion of the foreigners. 

But here the parallel ceases; for, whereas the 
Guanches became Christians at the point of the 
sword, the Sandwich Islanders accepted the relig- 
ion of the Cross voluntarily when borne as a mes- 
sage of good will by missionaries. 

Although on the vast expanse of the Pacific 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 213 

these eleven isles are mere minute specks, yet they 
contain some 6,000 square miles, an area larger 
than Connecticut and Rhode Island, Hawaii alone, 
the largest of the group, being the size of the for- 
mer State. 

Notwithstanding the very considerable extent 
of the dominions of King Kalakaua, the total pop- 
ulation of these islands at the last census was only 
57,985. Fifty-five years ago the natives num- 
bered 142,000, and now they are reduced to 44,- 
000. The remainder are foreigners, chiefly Amer- 
icans and Chinese, the latter being employed as 
coolies on the plantations. 

Many causes are assigned for the depopulation 
of these islands ; but as this has also been the case 
elsewhere when the superior has come in contact 
with the inferior race, we can find no better solu- 
tion than the Darwinian theory of selection and 
survival of the fittest. But the extinction of the 
Hawaiian islanders seems for the present to be 
checked, and perhaps for a while they may hold 
their own, until finally absorbed into the white 
race. 

It is exactly one hundred years since Captain 
Cook was killed in Kealakeakua Bay. The islands 
had been discovered two centuries earlier by the 
Spaniards, but it was the death of Cook that 
brought them suddenly into the prominent posi- 
tion they have ever since held before the world. 
The French Revolution and the American Civil 



214 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

War have occurred since then — mighty events in 
the history of civilization, whose results shall 
" spin for ever down the ringing grooves of " 
time. 

Less clamorous and attended by no bloodshed 
has been the revolution which, during this period, 
has transformed the Hawaiian race from a savage 
condition to a high rank among civilized states, as 
regards education and beneficent government. 
King Kamehameha, by his genius and force of 
character, unconsciously prepared the way for the 
social changes which were to come over the Ha- 
waiian Islands, when he subdued the various chiefs 
and islands, and brought them under a common 
sway. With the keen vision of a born ruler and 
man of destiny, he saw how he might turn to ac- 
count the appliances of civilized races, and caused 
a fleet of small schooners to be built, in which he 
was able to carry his army from island to island. 

When therefore, fifty-nine years ago, the Amer- 
ican missionaries landed on those islands to elevate 
them from heathenism and barbarism to Christian- 
ity and civilization, they had not to combat sepa- 
rate tribes and independent chieftains, but a na- 
tion so united that if an impulse seized one part 
the whole would follow. Thirty-three years after 
the arrival of the first missionaries at the islands, 
the American Board was able to say that " the 
Sandwich Islands, having been Christianized, shall 
no longer receive aid from the Board." 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 215 

In that brief period of thirty-three years a peo- 
ple had been transformed from a savage state to 
a high order of civilization. In that time a writ- 
ten language and a literature were created and 
education so generally diffused that to-day hardly 
an adult native can be found who is unable to 
read and write. A constitutional form of govern- 
ment has been firmly established with a legislative 
body, and a code prepared by Judge Lee is in 
active operation ; and whereas formerly thieving 
and murder and obscenity were universal and 
women were treated as menials, now one may 
sleep with unlocked doors, and go hither and 
thither about the islands with a security for life 
and property equaled in no other part of the 
globe. Of course I would not affirm that vice 
does not exist, but it is obliged to keep out of 
sight, and is as much the exception now as hon- 
esty and virtue were before the missionaries ar- 
rived. 

One of the most characteristic evidences of the 
transformation which has come over the Hawaiian 
Islands is shown by the fact that there is a the- 
atre at Honolulu, of which an amusing account is 
given in the life of Mathews the comedian, who 
spoke of Honolulu as " one of the loveliest little 
spots on earth." Mathews acted there "by com- 
mand of His Majesty Kamehameha V., King of 
the Sandwich Islands " (not Hoky Poky Wanky 
Fum, as erroneously reported), and a memorable 



216 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

night it was. Was it nothing to see a pitfull of 
Kanakas, black, brown, and whity-brown (till 
lately cannibals), showing their white teeth, grin- 
ning and enjoying " Patter and Clatter " as much 
as a few years ago they would have enjoyed the 
roasting of a missionary or the baking of a 
baby ? 

In justice to the Kanakas aforesaid, it should 
be said that they never in the worst days were 
cannibals from choice ; that is, they never ate any 
one as a delicacy or even for the more prosaic 
matter of nourishment. Only when their chiefs 
died, and out of respect or for some religious 
notion, they sometimes picked their bones. Al- 
though Christianized, it would therefore not be 
strange, but rather altogether to be expected, that 
the natives should retain some relics of their for- 
mer superstitions, if not from belief, from habit 
and heredity, even after the meaning of the cus- 
tom is forgotten. And such we find to be the 
case in a few instances. Lecky has shown in his 
graphic style how religious customs cling to a 
tribe or people for thousands of years, sometimes 
clothed with new names or adaptations, but yet 
originating far back in primordial times. 

One of the most interesting signs of the linger- 
ing power of old customs is seen in the continued 
respect paid to the lineal descendants of the old 
chiefs or chief esses, who, without the slightest au- 
thority for doing so under existing circumstances, 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 217 

sometimes arrogate and are allowed to exercise 
rights which can never again be legally theirs. The 
lotni-lomi is another habit retained from the past. 
Those who have been in a Russian bath will have 
some idea of lomi-lomi. It is employed as a means 
for relieving fatigue, neuralgia, or any physical 
exhaustion, for assisting digestion, and generally 
aiding the action of the functions of the body. 
One lies down, a muscular native with soft hands 
grasps every muscle in turn, and with a peculiar 
movement kneads and soothes it, until after half 
an hour the patient drops off in a sleep more calm 
and refreshing than that caused by the most bene- 
ficial anodynes. In former times the chiefs kept 
skilled attendants expressly for this service. 

The islanders all wear clothes now, but nat- 
urally the mildness of the climate makes this 
somewhat irksome, and men at work often reduce 
their wardrobe to a minimum consistent with ac- 
tual decency. The women are clad in a loose dress 
which is not unpleasing, and at least enables them 
to preserve the graceful outlines which the fash- 
ions of civilization so often deform. They have 
a pretty custom of adorning their hair with gar- 
lands of flowers. 

The swimming feats of the Hawaiian islanders 
have long been famous, not only for sudden exer- 
tion, but for long endurance and the power to sus- 
tain themselves many hours at the surface ; and 
women as well as men excel in this useful and 



218 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

noble sport. Infants often learn to swim before 
they are able to walk. 

It is among the rollers at Hilo, on the island 
of Hawaii, that one sees exhibitions of what is 
probably the most extraordinary skill ever exer- 
cised by man in practicing the powers of flotation. 
The surf -board play is an ancient custom of the 
islands, but there is evidence that it is gradually 
going out of use. The first essential to this sport 
is a high sea, causing rollers combing over with 
regularity and height. The second requisite is a 
bread-fruit-tree plank, ten to twenty feet in length 
and about two in breadth. Taking this in his 
hands, the swimmer cleaves his way to the first 
line of breakers. Then, watching his opportunity, 
he dives under a coming sea, and is carried by 
the undertow some distance from the shore, when 
he rises to the surface and again awaits his oppor- 
tunity. Soon a breaker of more than usual size 
heaves up, and as it takes the ground curls up- 
ward, and with a speed of forty miles an hour 
rushes toward the land. At once the swimmer 
throws himself on his board, and, keeping on the 
smooth slope of the mighty breaker just under 
the curling crest, is swept with lightning velocity 
to the shore. Sometimes some swimmer of un- 
usual hardihood and skill stands upon the surf- 
board, depending on his balancing powers to es- 
cape the fury of the seething surge that ever 
threatens to swallow him up. The sight is of 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 219 

the most thrilling character, and one is not sur- 
prised to learn that sometimes the daring adven- 
turer loses his life for his audacity. The philos- 
ophy of the sport seems to be that it is only pos- 
sible when the waves roll in obliquely toward the 
land. As one part of the comber touches the shore 
and breaks and dissolves, the continually repeat- 
ed action sends the board forward as well as side- 
wise ; and thus between forces acting in a tangent 
the swimmer is impelled safely where one would 
suppose only destruction could be his fate. It is 
altogether likely that the discovery of the possi- 
bility of thus gliding along the slope of a breaker 
was due to accident, like so many other inven- 
tions. 

Honolulu, the chief town of the Sandwich 
Islands, is on the island of Oahu, and if one goes 
by steamer it is there that he makes his first land- 
ing. It is a most delightful place at the bottom 
of a bay, on a plain flanked by hills and dominated 
by an extinct volcanic peak called Diamond Head, 
soaring near the watering-place Wakiki, and is 
embowered amid luxuriant masses of tropic vege- 
tation. The groves of taU, slender palms, gently 
swaying in the trade- wind, add an indescribable 
charm to a scene that is qualified to intoxicate the 
senses with its suggestions of enchanting repose. 

But on landing one is struck by the contrast 
between the scenery and the architecture of the 
city. Every house bears unmistakable evidence 



220 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

of Yankee origin. The churches, dwellings, and 
schools are exact copies of such structures in New 
England, excepting perhaps here and there a ve- 
randa that is more in harmony with palm-groves 
than the white wooden walls and severe lines of 
American domestic architecture, which is happily- 
giving place to more artistic styles. The society, 
also, is so largely American or formed on American 
social models, instead of being of the sensuous, un- 
intellectual, passionate types one meets generally 
in those latitudes, that it seems as if two effects or 
scenes were here in conflict and not yet quite ad- 
justed to each other ; while the shipping in the 
port is so largely of the rig and flag of the United 
States that the effect is intensified. The American 
missionaries, not satisfied with imparting their 
creed into these isles, also grafted American traits 
into the very character of this insular kingdom, 
as if anticipating that eventually they might be- 
come annexed to the United States. 

There is a large, commodious, and excellent 
hotel at Honolulu, canopied by tropical foliage ; 
and there also are the palace of the king and other 
buildings of the government. It sounds strange 
to speak of these, together with the regularly 
collected revenues, the well-ordered system of 
taxation, and all the other adjuncts of advanced 
civilization, when one considers that not two gen- 
erations have elapsed since these islands were sunk 
in primeval barbarism. It is the most extraor- 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 221 

clinary transformation known in history. Every- 
thing, however, is in miniature, except the scenery, 
which is everywhere on a grand scale, subKme for 
its precipices and gorges, superb for the beauty of 
the vegetation and the noble reaches of valley and 
plain, ever terminating at the blue expanse of the 
ocean, the mighty Pacific, whose rollers playfully 
yet majestically encircle the shores, lovingly and 
yet exclusively, as if they would shut out the bus- 
tle and raging of the busiest century that ever the 
sun shone on. 

And yet, with all this outward peace, these 
islands inclose within the bosom of their stupen- 
dous mountains the wildest exhibition of physical 
power in action to be seen on the planet. One 
would not imagine this from an external or dis- 
tant view of the volcanoes ; for, unlike Teneriffe 
or most other volcanic heights, they ascend by a 
very gradual slope, and are dome-like in shape, 
without anything striking about them except 
their enormous height. Haleakala, on the island 
of Maui, is ten thousand feet high, and its crater, 
thirty miles in circumference and two thousand 
feet deep, is of similar dimensions to the crater of 
Teneriffe, but far less regular and impressive. It 
has been extinct for untold ages. Mauna Loa, on 
Hawaii, has an elevation of fourteen thousand 
feet. But the ascent of these heights is every- 
where gradual and unattended with danger, unt il 
one reaches the craters. Then, indeed, if they 



222 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

are in violent action, the adventurer must literal- 
ly look to his steps. 

There are small schooners plying between the 
islands, and to one who loves the sea it is pleas- 
anter to make the run to Hilo from Honolulu by 
this means in preference to the small packet steam- 
ers. It is from Hilo, on Hawaii, that one can best 
ascend Kilauea ; and there is a small house at the 
summit for the accommodation of travelers, where 
one may be comfortably provided and refreshed, 
including the ever-grateful application of the lomi- 
lomi. 

Hilo is a charming, dreamy little place, strag- 
gling along the curve of a fine beach, and nestling 
picturesquely amid its groves of breadfruit and 
pandanus trees, above which the delicately limbed, 
graceful cocoas wave aloft their banners of green, 
while the northeast trade-wind whispers tender 
music in the slowly swaying foliage. There is a 
delightful circle of Americans at this port, who 
are ever hospitably intent toward the stranger 
from a foreign shore, who, in the absence of a ho- 
tel, must find a shelter under a private roof. 

It is here one procures a guide and horses suit- 
able for a trip to the volcanoes. These, according 
to the old traditions of the islands (not unlike a 
Greek mythological tale in its character), are un- 
der the supervision of the goddess Pele, who super- 
intends the sublime spectacle of fire which renders 
Kilauea and Mauna Loa the most vivid illustra- 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 223 

tions of hell which we have at present any oppor- 
tunity of seeing. Few people care to see more. 
After a wearisome but very interesting ride over 
bridle-paths of the roughest character, worn into 
the lava-beds over which we pass, we arrive at 
nightfall at the Volcano House, near the edge of 
the crater of Kilauea, whence after dark the lurid 
glare of the crater can be seen, and the tongues 
of flames shooting awfully and mysteriously above 
a lake of fire. Lying in bed, we see the glare 
through the window, throwing a glow over the 
walls. One who is superstitious may well feel 
awesome at the sight. It must have been some 
such spectacle that gave rise to the Dantesque 
visions of the Middle Ages. 

Thin clothing is desirable when one enters the 
crater. It is about nine miles round, and perhaps 
a thousand feet deep. By steps in the cliff one 
descends without much difficulty to the dead dry 
crust which covers much of the bottom of the 
crater. Near the center is the burning lake of 
liquid lava, which is rather in the form of two 
caldrons, but often the lava boils over the barrier 
that divides them. A natural bulwark rising like 
a mound around them keeps the liquid fire from 
running over on the dead but warm lava that 
forms the floor of the crater. Probably there is 
no more remarkable and dreadful looking spec- 
tacle in the world, or one more suggestive of de- 
struction. The red, fiery, weltering waves boil up 



224 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

and roll over with appalling grandeur, while the 
heat of the crust, from which we gaze on the 
scene, is sufficiently warm to make it difficult to 
stand long in one place. 

Mauna Loa, which is much higher than Kilauea, 
has long been even more celebrated for its fire- 
works, and within the last generation several vio- 
lent eruptions have occurred. In 1855 a new crater 
was formed, which for ten months poured out a 
stream of burning lava extending seventy miles, 
and averaging three miles in breadth, and in some 
places hundreds of feet deep. It rolled over 
mighty precipices into the sea, a living cataract 
of fire. In 1859 the same mountain belched forth 
a torrent of lava fifty miles long in the short space 
of eight days. 

Of course, in a sketch like this, it is impossible 
to go into an elaborate description of these vol- 
canoes, or of the many phases of scenery which 
offer themselves in a group like the Hawaiian Isl- 
ands. Hawaii is corrugated and seamed by nu- 
merous canons or gulches, often of great depth. 
The pali or vertical precipice which forms the 
northern side of Molokai is also a feature of the 
island scenery which strikes the beholder with 
awe and wonder. It resembles the abruptness of 
Alderney Island, although on a far grander scale. 

The islands are often clothed with dense for- 
ests, especially on the northern side, which is ex- 
posed to the trade-winds, and herds of wild cattle 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 225 

roam at will through the underwood ; while game, 
such as wild pigs, snipe, plover, and duck, abound. 
There is, however, much land on most of the isl- 
ands which is arable, and wheat, maize, tobacco, 
arrowroot, rice, sugar, and coffee are raised with- 
out difficulty. Taro, which is to the Sandwich 
Islander what rice is to the Chinese or the Ben- 
galee, is raised on low wet ground, which is pro- 
ductive for this root to an extraordinary degree. 
Horses are so numerous that there is probably 
more than one for every soul in the islands, al- 
though it is not fifty years since they were intro- 
duced there. It is often actually cheaper to buy 
a horse there than to hire one. 

Kealakeakua Bay, on the southern side of Ha- 
waii, is the most historical spot in the group. 
There Captain Cook was killed when attempting 
to embark, and his bones for years after were 
worshiped by the natives as those of a god. A 
village on a little plain at the foot of lofty preci- 
pices, flanked by rows of cocoa-trees, by the sea, 
the place is well worth visiting apart from its 
tragic associations. 

Separated from the rest of the group, Kaui is 
remarkable as presenting a different formation 
from its neighbors ; or rather, while of volcanic 
origin, it shows no signs of igneous activity for 
many ages past. The rocks and soil, worn down 
by time, have a more mellow, inviting appear- 
ance, and are perhaps better suited to agriculture 
15 



226 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

than the adjacent islands. The Falls of Waia- 
lua, rushing over cliffs of basalt, are a beautiful 
spectacle ; and the mountains generally, although 
lower than on Hawaii, are more stern and mas- 
sive, deeply furrowed as they are with mighty 
grooves and scarped into precipices. The pali 
of Kaui extends for nearly twenty-five miles 
along the coast, resembling the northern side of 
Madeira, and only accessible to boats at certain 
points in the beach at the foot of the tremendous 
precipice. There is something wonderfully grand 
in the sublime monotony of such vast insular pre- 
cipices, lashed for evermore by the surges of the 
trade-winds, which tends to increase the sense of 
isolation we attach to small islands. 

But after we have roamed over the Sandwich 
Islands, climbed their mountains, shuddered at 
their volcanic- terrors, or been entertained by the 
curious traits of the native character, it is to the 
climate that I revert with the greatest pleasure. 
So balmy and regular is it that no word exists in 
the Hawaiian language to express weather. Of 
course the weather is always good, unvaryingly 
good ; therefore it is not weather, for that implies 
variability, contrast, and change in atmospheric 
conditions. In trade-wind islands you rarely hear 
the weather alluded to ; as a stock topic of con- 
versation, which it is in rougher climes, it is sent 
to Coventry. When a gentleman calls on a lady, 
he must find some other subject with which to 



THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 227 

open conversation ; for, if he should say, " It is 
fine weather to-day," his companion would most 
likely stare at him and be inclined to reply, 
"Well, what of it? Do we have any other 
weather here ? Is it not fine every day ? " 

The northern side of the Hawaiian isles, being 
exposed to the trade-winds, which concentrate the 
moisture on the mountain-sides, is more rainy than 
the lee side ; this is especially noticeable on Ha- 
waii. But there is no regular rainy season. The 
mean temperature of the islands is about 75°, the 
maximum being 90° and the minimum 55°. It 
rarely falls to the latter figure at the sea-level ; 
but by ascending three or four thousand feet one 
can find an average temperature ranging from 
40° to 75°. 

Thus we find a nearly perfect climate here, 
slightly warmer than Teneriffe and Madeira, and 
somewhat more moist, and therefore, perhaps, 
more relaxing, at least to permanent residents who 
have no disease. But this objection may apply 
to most steady, serene climates, and can be over- 
come by an occasional absence and bracing up 
elsewhere. The invalid who has not yet reached 
the point where nothing can ameliorate a perma- 
nently disorganized system, is greatly benefited 
and often cured by a residence in such a climate, 
where he breathes constantly the pure oxygen of 
heaven, and seems each day to take a fresh 
draught from the fountain of youth. 



228 THE WORLD'S PARADISES. 

When I think of life in such a magical spot, 
when I recall the days and years I have passed in 
trade-wind islands, I find the utmost degree of 
enthusiasm reasonable in dreaming of the charms 
of existence there, and wonder that, having once 
tasted of what it is to live, one can ever be con- 
tent to struggle to keep soul and body together 
in more inhospitable climes. One great blessing 
of life in such lovely seclusion and climatic inde- 
pendence as that of the Sandwich Islands is, that 
the problems of life weigh less heavily upon the 
mind, and one is more content than in the restless 
society of Europe or America to leave to another 
world the solution of questions which we can not 
settle in this ; and although that is but a negative 
advantage as compared with the illusive hopes 
and stormy raptures which are too often followed 
by the reaction of crushing despair, content with 
/ the present is, after all, the only form of happi- 
I ness worth the name in this life. The next will 
reveal whether there is anything better in store 
for an oppressed humanity ; but meantime let us 
enjoy these earthly paradises which lure us to re- 
pose and content, and for a while make us forget. 



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26. THOMAS CARLYLE. His Life— his Books— his Theories. 

By Alfred H. Guernsey. 30 cents. 

27. A THOROUGH BOHEMIENNE. A Tale. By Madame 

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28. THE GREAT ITALIAN AND FRENCH COMPOSERS. 

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29. RUSKIN ON PAINTING. With a Biographical Sketch. 

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31. AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS ; or, A Peep at the 

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39. " MY QUEEN." 25 cents. 

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CoLLFXTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS. 



design of the " Collection of Foreign Authors" is to give selections from the bet- 
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I. SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY. A Novel. 

From the French of Victor Cherbuliez . . . $0.60 $1.00 
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! IV. THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT. From the 

French of George Sand 50 .75 

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of Victor Cherbuliez 50 .75 

f. VI. ROMANCES OF THE EAST From the French 

of Comte de Gobineau 60 1.00 

\ VII. RE NEE AND FRANZ. From the French of Gus- 

TAVE HALLER 50 .75 

fell. MADAME GOSSELIN. From the French of 

Louis Ulbach 60 1.00 

\ IX. THE GODSON OF A MARQUIS. From the 

French of Andre Theuriet 50 .75 

[ X. ARIADNE. From the French of Henry Greville .50 .75 
IFAR-HADGI; OR, RUSS AND TURCO- 

From the French of Prince Lubomirski .60 1.00 
;XII. IN PA RADISE. From the German of Paul Heyse. 

In Two Volumes Per vol., .60 1.00 

JCIII. REMORSE. A Novel. From the French of Th. 

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French of Victor Cherbuliez 60 1.00 

|XV. TALES FROM THE GERMAN OF P 

HEYSE ... .60 1.00 

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! Either of the above volumes sent by mail, post-paid, to any address in the United 
1 da, upon receipt of the price. 



APPLETONS' NEW HANDHOLDME SERIES* 

[continued from second page op cover.] 

25. Fairy Tales : their Origin and Meaning. By John Thackray Bunc 

25 ets. 

26. Thomas Carlyle : His Life— his Books— his Theories. By Alfp.e 

H. Guernsey. Paper, 30cts. ; cloth, 60 d 

27. A Thorough Bohemienne. A Tale. By Madame Charle 

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cloth, 60 cts. 

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" John-a-Ureams." Paper, 30 ets. ; cloth, 60 cts. 

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a Garret. Being the Journal of a Happv Man. From the Frencl 
of Emile Souvestre. Paper, 30 cts.; cloth, 60 el 

32. A Rogue's late : From his Birth to his Marriage. By Wilkh 

i lins. Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 

33. Geier- Wally : A Tale of the Tyrol. From the German of Wilhel 

mine von Hillern. Paper, 30 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 

34. The Last Essays of Elia. By Charles Lamb. Paper 30 cts 

cloth, I 

35. The Yellow Mask. By Wilkie Collins. Paper, 25 cts.; cloth, 60 ct- 

36. A-Saddle in the Wild West. A Glimpse of Travel. By Wi 

H. Rideing. Paper, 25 cts. ; cloth, 60 cts. 

37. Money. A Tale. By Jules Tardieu. Paper, 25 cts. 

38. Peg Woflington. A Tale. Bv Charles Reade. Paper, 30 cts 

39. *« My Queen." Paper, 25 cts. 

40. Uncle Cesar. By Madame Charles Reybaud. Paper, 26 I 

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ter. By Beatrice May Butt. Paper, 25 i 

42. Table-Talk. To which are added Imaginary Conversations of Poj 

and Swift. By Leigh Hunt. Paper, 30 cts. 

43. Christie Johnstone. By Charlss Reade. Paper, 80 cl 

44. The World's Paradises. By 8. G. W. Benjamin. Paper, 30 ctp 



Appletons' New Handy-Volume Series is in handsome 18mo volumes, in lar i 
type, of a size convenient for the pocket, or suitable for the library-shelf, lound 
paper covers. A selection of the volumes hound also in cloth, 60 cent? ea 

Any volume mailed, post-paid, to any address within the United States or Can- 
ada, on receipt of the price. 

D. APPLE TON & CO., 549 & 551 Broadway, \ ) 



